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| SECOND FOREIGN MISSION- 



olzzt 







JOURNEY OF 
PAUL, SILAS, LUKE, AND TIMOTHY 



TO 



EUROPE. 



BY WILLIAM A. ALCOTT. 



Written for the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, and revised 
by the Committee of Publication. 




BOSTON: 

MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETY 
Depository, No. 24, Cornhili. 

18M.'" 



»*v* i'V : ^,: 












Entered according to Act of Congress, in th e year 1834 

By Christopher C. Dean, 
in Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts 



/f^S 



CONTENTS. 



Preface, 7 

CHAPTER I. 

ntroductory Remarks. How Paul became acquaint- 
ed with Silas. Geography. Paul and Barnabas 
agree to make a second journey to Asia Minor. 
A dispute about John Mark. Paul and Barnabas 
«ep?rate. Paul takes Silas for a companion. Ac- 
count of Silas. They set out by land. Journey to' 
Tarsus. Thence to. Derbe and Lystra. . 9 

CHAPTER 11. 

aul and Silas at Lystra. They take Timothy into 
the partnership. Some account of him. They vis- 
it the Churches in Asia together. Thoughts about 
love to ministers. How much the Missionaries re- 
sembled our Metho v sts, and Moravians. . 18 

CHA PTER III. 

phe Missionaries leave Phrygia. Account of their 
journey. Arrival at Troas. Paul's vision. They 
find Luke. Account of him. He joins the com- 
pany. Why four of them, Paul, Silas, Timothy 
and Luke, all travelled together. . . 29 



iv CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Missionaries embark for Europe. They touch 
at Samothracia. Arrive at Neapolis. Proceed to 
Philippi. Curious Anecdote. Oratories. The 
prayer meeting. Conversion of Lydia. The Py- 
thoness. Trouble with her. Paul casts out her 
evil spirit. He and Silas imprisoned. Where 
Luke and Timothy were at this time, and why 
they were not imprisoned. .... 

CHAPTER V. 

Description of Eastern Jails. Stocks. Behavior of 
Paul and Silas in their dungeon. Midnight pray- 
er and praise. A miraculous Earthquake. The 
Jailer and his household converted, instructed and 
baptized. Paul and Silas liberated. Conduct of 
the magistrates. Noble conduct of Paul and Silas. 
Reflections. Paul, Silas and Timothy depart for 
Thessalonica. ...... 

CHAPTER VI. 

Journey from Philippi to Amphipolis. Description 
of that city. Journey to Apoilonia. What be- 
came of Luke ? They arrived at Thessalonica. Ac- 
count of this city. Its modern aspect. They stop 
at the house of Jason. Preaching in the syna- 
gogue. Their success. Labored on week days at 
tent making. Ought ministers to labor with their 
hands? A mob raised. Evils of idleness. The 
mob attack the house of Jason. Seize Jason. Lib- 
erate him. The missionaries secretly sent away in 
the night to Berea. ..... 76 

CHAPTER VII. 

Berea. Description of it. Character of the people. 
Reflections. Condition of the missionaries. Luke 
— Timothy. Thoughts on self-denial and the mis- 
sionary spirit. How Paul and Silas and Timothy 
behaved in the common concerns of life. Their 
labors and success in Berea. The Thessalonian 



CONTENTS. t 

mob follow them. They excite the Bereans against 
thera. Paul sent away by sea, two hundred and 
fifty miles, to Athens. . • . . . 92 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Athens. Its size. Streets. Public buildings. Mars 
Hill. Character of the people. Punishments. 
Commerce. Silas and Timothy. Account of the 
Epicureans. Of the Stoics. Character of Zeno. 
The Epicureans and Stoics unite to oppose Chris- 
tianity. 100 

CHAPTER IX. 

Idolatry at Athens, Paul encounters the philoso- 
phers. Their charges against him. The court of 
Areopagus. Paul brought before it. His speech. 
Difficulties about the doctrine of the resurrection. 
The subject considered. PanPs explanation, in a 
letter. Few converts at Athens. Paul's depart- 
ure. 117 

CHAPTER X. 

St. Paul arrives at Corinth. Description of the city. 
Character of the inhabitants. Paul's meeting with 
two old friends. Lodges with them. Labors at his 
trade. Preaches in the synagogue. Arrival of Silas 
and Timothy. Paul turns to the Gentiles. His 
success. Long abode at Corinih. What became 
of Silas and Timothy. His letters to the Thessa- 
lonians. Is persecuted, but honorably acquitted. 
Reflections. 138 

CHAPTER XI. 

Voyage to Cesarea. They stop at Ephesus. Ac- 
count of Ephesus. Temple of Diana. Paul 
preaches at Ephesus. What probably became of 
Timothy. Paul re-embarks for Cesarea. Safe 
arrival. Goes to Jerusalem. Attends a Jewish 
Feast there. Proceeds to Antioch. Recapitula- 
tion. Practical reflections. . . . 159 



PREFACE, 



The purpose of this volume, as was announced in 
the " First Foreign Mission " is to furnish a continua- 
tion, or Second Part of that work. I have endeavored 
to preserve the same spirit, and the same plain, and 
familiar style. 

The li First Foreign Mission ' contained so much 
ibout the manners and customs of Eastern nations, that 
far less has been said on those topics in the present vol- 
ume than would otherwise have been necessary. But 
as it was supposed that this book might fall into the 
hands of some who have not seen the other, it was not 
deemed expedient wholly to omit them; and the reader 
who peruses both works must not be surprised, if he 
finds a few thoughts which are contained in that work 
repeated — or perhaps amplified — in this. 



tiii PREFACE. 

It is hoped that these two volumes will be of service 

to Sabbath Schools and to families at home, by giving 

reality to those things which to many young readers 

certainly appear unreal, if not visionary; and that 

those who read them will come gradually to consider 

the apostles in their journeyings and labors as men, and 

the places which they visited and the objects which 

they incidentally mention or more fully describe, as 

actually belonging to the world, in which we live. 

The Author. 
Boston, Oct.. 1834. 



SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introductory Remarks. How Paul became acquainted 
with Silas. Geography. Paul and Barnabas agree 
to make a second journey to Asia Minor. A dispute 
about John Mark. Paul and Barnabas separate. 
Paul takes Silas for a companion. Account of Silas. 
They set out by land. Journey to Tarsus. Thence 
to Derbe and Lystra. 

After the return of Paul and Barnabas 
from Asia Minor, they remained in Syria — 
chiefly in Antioch — about two years. Once 
during this time, they went to Jerusalem, 
but they staid there but a short time only. 
As this visit proved the means, however, 
of introducing to Paul's acquaintance a 
new companion in his travels, it may be 
worth while to give a short account of it. 

It appears that some of the first Christian 
teachers who came down from Jerusalem 



10 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION 

to Antioch, taught the strange doctrine that 
all Gentiles who were converted to Christi- 
anity must be circumcised and keep the 
law of Moses, like the Jews. These no- 
tions were opposed with great earnestness 
by Paul and Barnabas ; and finally, in order 
to settle the question, the church at Anti- 
och appointed a committee of their best 
men to go up to Jerusalem and consult 
with James and the other apostles, who 
dwelt there, on the subject. Among the 
number were our two friends, Paul and 
Barnabas. 

Soon after their arrival at Jerusalem, a 
meeting was held, and the following con- 
clusion was adopted. That none of the 
rites and ceremonies of the Jewish law 
ought to be required of the converted Gen- 
tiles : but onlv that they should abstain from 
eating meat offered to idols, from eating 
strangled animals, and blood, * and from 

" If any animal which the Jews used for food was 
strangled and the blood did not drain away, their law 
did not allow them to eat of it ; and to this day, thev 



ACCOUNT OF SILAS 11 

committing fornication. A written decree 
to this effect, was prepared, and several 
men were appointed to go down to Anti- 
och, with Paul and Barnabas, and carry it. 

Among these persons was an elderly 
man by the name of Silas ; or as he was 
sometimes called, Silvanus. We know 
very little of his early history, only that he 
was a disciple of Christ, and a very wise 
and good man. Some suppose — I know- 
not with what reason — that he was one of , 
the seventy disciples that the Saviour sent 
out, two by two, as domestic missionaries 
in Galilee. However this may have been, 
we soon find him becoming an acquaint- 
ance and friend of Paul, and instead of 



observe this rule with great exactness In no one thing 
are they more particular than in their endeavors to 
avoid blood. 

In killing an animal for food several circumstances 
must, they thought, be attended to. The knife must 
be very sharp, for it is well known that the blood of an 
animal flows more freely in such a case than if a dull 
instrument is employed. They contrive to have the 
blood flow either upon the ground or upon ashes. Be- 
fore they put the meat in the pot for boiling they let it 
stand in salt an hour, to rid it of what blood still re- 
mains. 



1 



% 



12 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

going up to Jerusalem again,* making 
Antioch his steady place of residence. 

After Paul and Barnabas had spent near- 
ly two years at home, chiefly in Antioch, 
Paul proposed one day to Barnabas to make 
a second tour to Asia Minor, to their for- 
mer missionary stations, and see how the 
churches which they had established there, 
flourished ; and the latter consented to un- 
dertake the journey. 

But now a difficulty arose. They wish- 
ed to take a third man with them, and Bar- 
abas fixed his eye on John Mark again. 
This did not suit Paul. He remembered 
about his deserting them, in their former 
journey, just as they began to stand most 
in need of his services. Besides he was 



* Many Sabbath School pupils have wondered what 
was meant by going up from Antioch to Jerusalem, 
when it was 420 miles to the South. In this country, 
north is called up, and south is called down. 

But we should remember that in most countries it is 
called up towards the sources of the rivers. In New Eng- 
land the rivers have their sources northward, generally. 
But in the Southern States, rivers come from the west- 
ward; hence that way is up, with them. In Lower 
Canada, to the south-west is up. In Egypt and New 
Grenada, it is up, towards the south, &c. 



PAUL AND BARNABAS SEPARATE. 13 

himself a man of courage, and decision, 
and perseverance, and he preferred for 
companions men of a similar character. 
He seems to have had no confidence at all 
in Mark, and he was wholly unwilling to 
hearken to Barnabas for one moment. 

The discussion about taking him at 
length rose to an angry dispute, and ap- 
pears to have separated the two friends for 
a time — perhaps forever. Barnabas chose 
to leave Paul, rather than give up his 

When there are no considerable rivers in a country, 
it is * up ' towards the highest land, or mountains. This 
was the case in Judea. For though the Jordan, on its 
eastern borders, ran to the south, and hence in the im- 
mediate neighborhood of that river « up ' was to the 
north, yet as Jerusalem was on the height of land be- 
tween the river Jordan and the Dead Sea on the one 
side, and the Mediterranean Sea on the other, and al- 
most equally distant from both ; and as the smaller 
streams in its neighborhood ran either eastward or west- 
ward, it became almost universal in the country to speak 
of going up to Jerusalem. Perhaps the habit of speak- 
ing thus was more common along the coast of the Med- 
iterranean Sea, at Gaza, Joppa, and Cesarea, than any 
where else. It was easy, however, to extend it to Tyre 
and Sidon, and ultimately to Antioch : for though the 
latter lay up the river Orontes, and not exactly on the 
sea-coast, yet the country around was low, while Jeru- 
salem was elevated. 



14 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

nephew ; so quitting Antioch at once, he 
and Mark sailed for Cyprus.* 

How strange that good men and espe- 
cially intimate and dear friends should suf- 
fer themselves to be led into angry sharp 
dispute ! The two first foreign missiona- 
ries, and two of the best men the world 
ever saw, contending, and obliged to sep- 
arate ! It is most surprising. [s it not 
enough that unholy men should quarrel 
with each other ? Alas for the cause of 
God and the church, when such men as 
Paul and Barnabas cannot agree ! Better, 
however, to separate than to live together 
unquietly. The world was wide enough 
for both Abraham and Lot; and it was 
wide enough too, for both Paul and Barna- 
bas. It is always wide enough for people 



* Paul, though " subject to like passions" with other 
men, could forgive ; for we find him, some time after- 
ward, speaking in the highest terms of his former 
friend and companion. Barnabas. More than this, we 
find that even Mark himself, who was the occasion of 
the quarrel between them, became his assistant and 
fcllow-laborer in the gospel ministry. 







PAUL CHOOSES SILAS. 15 

to live in it, at a distance sufficiently great 
to prevent quarrelling. Barnabas and 
Mark, there is reason to believe, did great 
good in Cyprus, though we do not know 
the particulars. 

But Paul, though left alone, was not to 
be discouraged. He was a man of so much 
energy of character that he would proba- 
bly have gone on his way without any per- 
son with him, in preference to staying at 
home, after having once made up his mind 
that it was his duty to go. But this was not 
necessary. As if Divine Providence, fore- 
seeing the difficulty with Barnabas, had rais- 
ed up a successor, Silas was at hand. He 
was not only worthy of his confidence as 
an intimate friend, but he was a very holy 
man ; and Paul selected him at once, to be 
his companion in his journey. He appears 
to have been rather younger than Barnabas, 
and of course was less acquainted with the 
world. Still he could not be said to be 
inexperienced. There are some persons 
who will acquire more real experience in 



16 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

one year, than others in three, and be wiser 
at thirty, than others at seventy. Silas, 
there is reason to believe, from what hap- 
pened during their journey, was one of 
those who keep their " eyes open," and ac- 
quire much knowledge and experience, in 
comparatively little time. 

When, on a former occasion, Paul and 
Barnabas w<ere about to go to the same 
country, the church of Antioch commended 
them to the care and favor of God. So it 
was now, in respect to Paul and Silas. 

But instead of going by water, any part 
of the way, they went wholly by land, 
doubtless on foot. The distance to Derbe, 
the nearest station which Paul and Bnrna- 
bas had occupied, was only about 250 
miles ; the journey, therefore, was not re- 
markably tedious. The roads were good, 
and very direct. They were built by the 
Romans; were paved, and very high; so 
that as people travelled along on them 
they could overlook much of the adjoining 
country. 



PAUL IN C1UC1A. 17 

Paul and Silas, on leaving Antioch, went 
through the northern parts of Syria, into 
Cilieia. Whether they spent any considera- 
ble time at Tarsus, where Paul was brought 
up, and where his friends still lived, is un- 
certain. But as it appears he had preach- 
ed in Tarsus and its neighborhood a num- 
ber of years before he went to Antioch, it 
is probable they visited and encouraged the 
churches there, before they went to Derbe 
and Lystra and other cities in the province 
of Lycaonia. One reason which makes me 
think they did so, is because, instead of 
going by water, the nearest and easiest 
way to Asia Minor, they went by land, and 
contrived to pass through Tarsus and the 
rest of Cilieia. 



CHAPTER II. 

Paul and Silas at Lystra. They take Timothy into the 
partnership. Some account of him. They visit the 
Churches in Asia together. Thoughts about love to. 
ministers. How much the Missionaries resembled 
our Methodists, and Moravians. 

Paul and Silas now arrived at Derbe. 
From Derbe they proceeded to Lystra. 

While they were at Derbe, and Lystra,* 
Paul entered into an agreement with Timo- 
thy to go with them. There can be no 
doubt that this excellent young man was 
very useful at home ; — useful to his parents, 
and also to his brothers and sisters, if he 

* In the " First Foreign Mission ' much doubt was 
expressed whether Timothy was a native of Derbe or 
Lystra, but I was strongly inclined to the opinion that 
he belonged to Derbe. From further examination, I 
am convinced that he was a native of Lystra. 



TIMOTHY ABROAD. 19 

had any, and a comfort to his very aged 
grandmother. Nor was his usefulness 
probably confined to the family. Indeed 
we are expressly told, that he was not only 
well spoken of by the christians at Lystra, 
but also by those at Iconium, forty miles 
distant. 

I cannot help thinking that, young as he 
was, God had, by his Spirit, already stirred 
him up to that work of the ministry, to 
which he afterwards became so much at- 
tached and devoted; and that he had al- 
ready acted as a kind of deacon or under 
minister, in various churches. Else how 
came it to pass that he was so well known 
at Iconium, at this time, especially if he 
was not, as some suppose, more than twen- 
ty years old. 

It was not, then, because Timothy was 
good for nothing at home, that he went a- 
broad. We can never have reason to be- 
lieve he was an idle young man. We are 
warranted in supposing, on the contrary, 
that he was very active in doing good, and 

2 



20 SECOND FOREIGN MISSIOxX. 

that he consented to go abroad with Paul* 
only because he hoped to do more good. 

Many people suppose that if a person is 
useful where he is, he ought not to go away. 
But if this had been the opinion of the a- 
postles and first christians, the missionary 
labors of Paul, and Barnabas, and Timothy, 
and Silas, and Luke, and other men of the 
same stamp, would never have been under- 
taken. 

It is commonly true that the very men 
who are most useful at home, will be most 
useful abroad ; and that they on the contra 
ry, who are useless at home, will be useless 
abroad. And it is well that this has become 
the general opinion, for now Christian 
churches take great pains to secure and 
send out as foreign missionaries, the ablest 
men they can find. This, I mean to say, is 
the general rule, to which there are, doubt- 
less, some exceptions. 

Before setting out with Paul and Silas, 
Timothy submitted to the Jewish rite of 






TIMOTHY ORDAINED. 21 

circumcision. This was done, by the rec- 
ommendation of Paul, in order to avoid 
hurting the feelings of the Jews among 
whom they were to go, in Asia Minor, and 
leading them to complain. They knew 
that though his mother was a Jew, his fath- 
er was a Greek ; and might therefore doubt 
whether he would be circumcised. They 
would not have been willing, I suppose, to 
have heard a preacher who was uncircum- 
cised. Paul and Barnabas, and Silas, and 
probably all the older preachers, had been 
circumcised, and in other respects brought 
up as Jews ; and doubtless kept the seventh 
day, and frequented the Synagogues, as the 
Jews did. 

Why they did not find fault with Timo- 
thy for entering upon the ministry so young, 
is a more difficult question. There is a- 
bundant evidence in the Epistles of Paul to 
his young friend Timothy, that he was at 
this time regularly ordained by Paul and 
Silas and others. And yet some of our a- 
bler commentators, think he was not more 



22 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION, 

than twenty years old. Now, among the 
Jews, it was not lawful for a priest to go 
upon the duties of his office till he had en- 
tered his thirtieth year ; and even the Sa- 
viour and John the Baptist conformed to 
this rule. The people of Lystra knew 
Timothy's age. Why then was there no 
outcry made against him on account of his 
youth ? 

Perhaps the only fair solution of this diffi- 
culty is, that those who think Timothy was 
no more than twenty years of age at this time 
were mistaken. The fact is that people were 
considered young, in those days, rather lon- 
ger than they are now. Whether married, 
or unmarried, they lived in the family of 
their fathers longer, and were longer con- 
sidered as under parental care. Then, pa- 
rental presence and advice, and restraint 
even, was not so irksome to the young as 
now. At the present time, not a few youth, 
if they do not think themselves actually wi- 
ser at eighteen or twenty years of age than 
their parents, do not, at least, believe them- 



TIMOTHY'S AGE. 2o 

selves greatly benefitted by their advice and 
instruction. They are young men and young 
women, in their own estimation, very early. 
And when they read in the Bible or else- 
where of a young person, they do not think 
of him as thirty years of age, (for that they 
suppose would be very old,) hardly as 
twenty. 

Now all the evidence we have on this 
point, so far as I know, is, that Paul calls 
Timothy a young man ; and says " Let no 
man despise thy youth." But was not Paul 
at least thirty years old, when Stephen was 
stoned °l "The witnesses laid down their 
clothes at a young man's feet," &c. Was 
not Absalom more than thirty, when Cushi 
and others called him young? Nay, is it not 
quite common in Scripture to speak of 
people as still young, who are thirty, or 
more ? Taking all things into considera- 
tion, it may be concluded, therefore, that 
Timothy had entered his thirtieth year. 

No sooner was Timothy ordained and 
circumcised, than Paul and Silas and he 

2* 



94 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

commenced their labors together. They 
went round about Phrygia and Galatia and 
the adjoining provinces, and visited all the 
churches which had been established two 
or three years before, during the first mis- 
sion, as well as those which had sprung up 
afterward. Galatia was at this time quite 
populous, containing no fewer than twenty- 
two cities. This visit, attended by the di- 
vine blessing, was abundantly useful. la- 
the language of the Bible ; " so were the 
churches established in the faith, and ia- 
creased in number daily." 

They also furnished each church which 
they visited with a copy of the opinion 
which was given at Jerusalem, about the 
Gentiles. Not that the question had ever 
yet been agitated in Asia Minor ; but it was 
easy to foresee that it might be, and it was 
desirable that the decision of the apostles, 
on the subject, should be well understood. 

It may excite surprise in the minds of 
many readers, that Silas is not oftener men- 
tioned during the progress of this mission. 



CHARACTER OF SILAS. 25 

We know he set out with Paul from Anti- 
och, and was with him at Philippi, and af- 
terward. But from Antioch to Philippi, 
there is scarcely a word said about him. 
"Surely" some will say "he was not a 
mere youth, in the capacity of a servant, as 
Mark appears to have been in the begin- 
ning of the ' First Foreign Mission.' Why, 
then, do we hear nothing of what he said 
and did ?" 

The answer is as follows. Silas, though 
somewhat younger than Paul, was a man of 
middle age, possessing great energy of 
character ; and not unlike Paul, in this res- 
pect. Had he not been so, it is hard to be- 
^eve Paul would have selected him for the 
journey. He had seen enough of timidity 
and irresolution in the case of Mark. Still 
we should remember that Silas was an ut- 
ter stranger in Asia Minor, while Paul was 
familiarly acquainted. Besides, their busi- 
ness in Asia Minor, was not so much to 
preach the gospel anew, as to visit, encour- 
age, and strengthen,- — confirm, as the Bible 



26 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

calls it, — those who had already repented 
and believed. It is not improbable that 
Silas had very little to do till they arrived 
in Europe, or Timothy either. 

It is exceedingly interesting to read 
Paul's simple but striking account of his re- 
ception in Galatiaat this time, as we find it 
in the fourth chapter of his epistle to the 
churches in that province. The joy they 
felt at his appearance among them was as 
if he had been an angel sent from heaven 
to encourage and build them up. In testi- 
mony of their good feeling and in view of 
their obligations to him, the apostle assures 
us that they would willingly have plucked 
out " their eyes," had it been possible, and 
given them to him. 

It w T ere well if our love to those ministers 
who are really devoted and godly men, 
w T ere equally great. * Not that we ought 

* " Do you favor priestcraft, then ?"' some reader may 
say, when he reads this, and the two subsequent para- 
graphs. " Would you have Christians become an ineffi- 
cient priest-ridden set of beings, as they once were ; 
and even as the poor ignorant Galatians appear to have 
been ? 






MINISTERIAL FIDELITY. 27 

to be willing to pluck out our eyes on their 
account, literally ; but there is no man who 
deserves more of the thanks of a communi- 
ty than the minister who does, faithfully, 
his whole dutv. 

1 have nothing to do with priest craft ; indeed, I hard- 
ly know what it is, except from history. I am quite 
as little acquainted with it as with merchant- craft, phy- 
sician-craft, or lawyer-craft. It is true there was a time 
when people suffered their ministers to think for them, 
quite too much, instead of examining for themselves. 
But I am very far from recommending this practice. 
It was always wrong. Nay I do not know that it ever 
was recommended by protestant christians or protestant 
christian ministers, from the days of Paul down to the 
present time. And no class of Paul's heaiers were 
more warmly commended by him than the Bereans, 
who " searched the scriptures daily, to see whether the 
things " which he stated " were so," or not. There 
was no priest craft about Paul. 

There has been a time, as I have already said, when 
people took their opinions too much upon trust. But 
was this their ^ma fault, or that of the minister ? We 
ere prone to extremes. In leaving off that bad habit, 
we have gone, or are going quite too far. Many are for 
rejecting, not only the ministers opinion, but the min- 
ister. 

Now this is both unwise, and unreasonable. Those 
vho are fifteen or eighteen years of age, and old enough 
to begin to think for themselves, might about as well 
leave off loving or regarding their parents, as the chris- 
tian world leave off loving and prizing those ministers 
vrho are good men, merely because the world has grown 
§o much wiser that we do not need them to think for us. 
J3ut who of us is too old to need the counsels of parent- 



28 

al wisdom ? And who too wise to need the instructions 
of a pious, godly minister ? 

We ought, indeed, to love all mankind. But there 
are some persons for whom our affection ought to be 
peculiarly strong. Of this class are our parents, our 
brothers, our sisters, our particular friends, and neigh- 
bors, and teachers, both of week day and Sunday 
schools ; our physicians and our ministers. People may 
laugh, if they please, about loving and valuing a minis- 
ter, and call it old fashioned or illiberal. We might a- 
bout as well cease to love our teachers, who, under 
God, have made us wiser, or our physician, who has 
been the means of making: us healthier, as the minister 
who has been the means of making us better and hap- 
nier. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Missionaries leave Phrygia. Account of their 
journey. Arrival at Troas. Paul's vision. They 
tind Luke. Account of him. He joins the compa- 
ny. Why four of them, Paul, Silas, Timothy and 
Luke, all travelled together. 

Whether Paul and Silas, when they 
left home, intended to go any farther than 
Paul and Barnabas had formerly gone, does 
not plainly appear. We only know that 
when Paul first proposed this second tour 
to Barnabas, it was simply to go over the 
ground again, where they had been before. 
" Let us go again," said he, " and visit our 
brethren in every city where we have 
preached the word of the Lord, and see 
how they do." 

But as Barnabas and Paul had a falling 
out at Antioch, and Silas took the place of 



30 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION 

Barnabas, it is not improbable that Paul 
changed his whole plan. He was not apt 
to be unsteady or vacillating ; but chang- 
ing circumstances, which it is not possible 
for us to foresee, always justify us in va- 
rying our plans. Be this as it may, in the 
case of Paul, we find that when he and his 
company had visited all the churches in the 
reigion of Lycaonia, Pbrygia, and Galatia, 
they immediately set out for other and 
more remote parts of the country. 

We are not to think of Asia Minor as a 
new and uncultivated region. Many parts 
of it were very old and thickly settled, and 
in some places the arts of civilized life were 
very well understood. There were numer- 
ous cities, of larger or smaller size, scatter- 
ed everv where, and connected with the 
very best of public roads, so that the trav- 
elling was excellent. 

* On leaving Phrygia the missionaries 



* There were formerly three meanings to the word 
Asia. 

1. The whole eastern world now called by that name, 
was even then sometimes called Asia. But this use o£ 
the word was very rare, 



PEOPLE OF MYSIA 31 

appear to have steered westward ; but for 
reasons to us unknown, and which, perhaps, 
were not known even to themselves, the 
Holy Spirit would not permit them to go 
into the western cities of Asia ; so they 
went into Mysia. The people here were a 
very low race, but as there have always 
been christian churches there, from that 
day to this, some writers suppose that Paul's 

2. Asia Minor, or the Lesser Asia, now constituting 
the province of Anatolia, in Turkey, and surrounded 
on three sides by water. It is briefly described in the 
" First Foreign Mission." This is the Asia which is 
chiefly spoken of in the New Testament. 

3. When Paul and Silas and Timothy, who were 
already in the very heart of Asia Minor, are said to have 
been " forbidden by the Holy Ghost to preach the word 
in Asia" the word must have meant a small portion, 
only, of the country lying in the west, and bordering on 
the Archipelago, or Egean Sea, of which Ephesus was 
the capital. It not only embraced the seven cities men- 
tioned by John in the Revelation, as having churches 
established there, but many others, some say several 
hundred of them. Among the most distinguished of 
them was the city of Colosse. 

The numerous cities of this rich, flourishing and pop- 
ulous region, were many of them sunk very low in 
vice. I do not wonder that a mind like Paul's should 
have been bent on rescuing and saving them, for if 
ever a people, calling themselves civilized, needed the 
light of Christianity, it was they. But God's own time 
for their salvation had not yet come. 



32 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

preaching was attended with success. It 
is probable they did not stay there long. 

From Mysia, they went northward tow- 
ards Bithynia. This was a province of 
Asia Minor, joining upon the Propontis and 
Black Sea. Here were the flourishing 
cities of Nice, Nicomedia and Chalcedon, 
which they probably intended to have visit- 
ed. This was also forbidden them by the 
Holy Spirit. They then went northwest- 
ward along the borders of the province of 
Mysia, but without making any considera- 
ble stay they continued their journey to 
Troas.* 

Troas was the most northwestern prov- 
ince of Asia, and was separated from Ma- 

* Not a few of our readers may have wondered why 
it was that the missionaries confined themselves to 
cities, so exclusively. Now there were several reasons 
for this: 1. The country was settled more in cities and 
villages than is common in these days. To find people, 
or at least to preach to any considerable number, they 
were obliged to take this course. 2. Cities are among 
the best places for missionaries. in any country. Like the 
heart which sends out blood to all parts of the human 
body, they send out either vice or virtue — good blood 
or bad — to all parts of the countries that trade with, 
them. 



TROAS. 38 



oo 



cedonia in Europe (now a pari of Turkey) 
by nothing but a very narrow strait. This 
province probably took its name from the 
Trojans, or inhabitants of Troy, for the city 
of Troas was only four miles distant from 
the spot where the famous ancient city of 
Troy was situated. Troas, however, the 
place where our missionaries stopped, was 
at that time a very small city, li was 
sometimes called Antigonia, at others Al- 
exandria. Paul was several times during 
his life at Troas. It was a noted seaport, 
and was the place where travellers from 
Asia, usually set sail to go to Europe. 

One would naturally think, by the mis- 
sionaries being hastened along in this direc- 
tion by the Holy Spirit, as well as from 
what happened afterward, that God had a 
work farther to perform in Europe, that did 
not admit of delay. We may imagine to 
ourselves a thousand other reasons for their 
hurrying on, but none are so satisfactory as 
this plain one. Thus the splendid and 
proud cities of the western part of Asia, 



34 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

whose iniquities, notwithstanding their 
wealth and learning, like those of Sodom 
and Gomorrah, seemed almost sufficient to 
call down upon them the vengeance of 
Heaven, and where, to all human appear- 
ance, just such a bold heavenly-minded man 
as Paul was wanted, were passed by, and 
Paul and his company were sent to a more 
remote, and in the view of the Asiatics, a 
more barbarous country. 

While they were at Troas, probably the 
first night after their arrival, Paul had a 
remarkable dream or vision, in which he 
saw a man from Macedonia, who stood by 
him and urged him with very great earn- 
estness, to come over into his country, and 
preach the gospel to his countrymen. 

How Paul could know, with certainty, 
that this vision was from God, and that it 
deserved his immediate attention, the writer 
of the Acts has not told us. We know, 
however, that this was his opinion, as well 
as that of the whole company ; and they 
immediately obeyed the heavenly vision. 



LUKE'S LEARNING. 35 

I spoke of the i whole company,' lor there 
were now four of them. Luke, the writer 
of the gospel that goes by his name, and 
also of the Acts, joined them at Troas, and 
travelled with them into Europe. 

It will be useful, before we go further, 
(for we can hardly consider this second 
foreign mission as fairly begun till the com- 
pany left Troas,) to consider two things. 
1. The early history and character of Luke ; 
and 2. Why so large a number of them 
went on this journey into Europe together. 

Luke, sometimes called Lucius, and in 
one instance Lucas, was probably a native 
of Cyrene, in the northern part of Africa. 
He was older than most of the first Chris- 
tians, for at the time he fell in with Paul 
and Silas and Timothy at Troas, he was, it 
is believed, above sixty years of age ; and 
if so, he must have been born about fifteen 
or twenty years earlier than the Saviour or 
Paul* 

* One thing which took place live or six years after- 
ward, seems to show that Luke must have been rather 
old, at the time abovementioned. When Paul, in one 

3* 






36 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

Of his early education; we know but very 
little indeed. Many think he was one oi 
the first believers in Christ; and a few sup- 
pose he belonged to the seventy whom Je- 
sus sent out. But this last, is clearly noth- 
ing but conjecture. 

There are, however, several reasons for 
believing that he was a well educated man. 

J. He was born in the neighborhood of 
Alexandria, in Egypt: which at that time 
was one of the most famous seats of learn- 
ing in the then known world. 

2. He was undoubtedly a physician. 
Paul calls him, in one instance, the beloved 
physician. Now the medical art was in 
high repute, in Egypt, long before the time 
of Luke, and even as far back as the days 
of Joseph ; and when compared with the 
physicians of Judea and other adjoining 
countries, they may be considered as very 

instance, was minded to travel on foot from Troas to 
Assos, Luke chose to go by water, probably to render 
the journey less fatiguing. Calmet. in his Dictionary, 
supposes he must have been at this time seventy-four 
or seventy-five years old. 



CHARACTER OF PAUL. 37 

learned men. It was the physicians of 
Egypt who had the wonderful, but now 
long lost art of embalming. 

3. There is a still stronger reason for be- 
lieving that St. Luke was a learned man. 
He evidently kept a journal. Of this, we 
must be fully convinced, if we look over 
the 16th, 20th, and 27th chapters of the 
Acts. It was not every traveller, in those 
days, that knew how to keep a journal. 
Few persons, it is believed, were taught 
even the first rudiments of knowledge. 
Probably not one in a thousand, made use 
of pen, ink and paper, when he went 
abroad, as St. Paul and St. Luke did. 

But whatever may have been Luke's ed- 
ucation, he was unquestionably a very wise 
and good man, and, as I have already ob- 
served, worthy of the confidence of the 
great Apostle with whom he was now as- 
sociated. As a counsellor, he was proba- 
bly no less valuable than Barnabas had 
been. He appears also to have been a man 



38 -SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

of uncommon industry, patience and for= 
titude. 

He had one qualification as a missionary 
of which Paul appears to have been desti- 
tute. This was a knowledge of medicine. 
So thoroughly convinced are mankind, at 
the present day, of the value of this art to 
a missionary, that many who are going out 
to foreign countries studv medicine before 
they go. Who does not know how much 
this kind of knowledge has done for Gutz- 
laff, the indefatigable missionary to China? 
One minister, who is now T on his way to 
the same country, has taken the degree of 
Doctor of medicine. And a successful 
teacher and missionary at Smyrna, in Asia 
Minor, has much knowledge on this sub- 
ject; and during seasons of sickness and 
great distress in the places which he has vis- 
ited, he has been thus enabled to do great 
good to the people. This is being a phy- 
sician indeed ; — to be able to do good both 
to the body and the soul. 



ASSOCIATED EFFORTS. 39 

What Luke had been doing for some time 
before he fell in with Paul at Troas, and 
where he had been employed, I am unable 
to learn. However, no person, it seems to 
me, who reads the following chapters, can 
doubt, for one moment, that he was direct- 
ed to this meeting with Paul, just at this 
time, by that divine Providence, whose hand, 
unseen, controls events, and orders every 
thing in that way which shall best accom- 
plish his designs, and bring about his plans 
and purposes. 

We are now to consider, as briefly as 
possible, why these four men, instead of 
journeying separately to as many different 
countries, and thus, as one would imagine, 
spreading the gospel faster, chose to travel 
in one company. 

It was not that they might be the better 
able to defend themselves, if attacked by 
robbers or murderers. It was not because 
they could not be employed elsewhere, or 
if they were employed, could not get their 
pay. Each had his trade, by means of 



4Q SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

which they could sustain themselves, if the 
people among whom they travelled failed 
to afford them a maintenance. And as to 
laying up property, this does not seem to 
have entered their minds. Thev seem to 
have paid no sort of attention to making 
property faster than they wished to expend 
it. True, we do not know that either of 
the four had families to support, which 
mi^ht alter the case a little. ?>or did thev 
travel together just for the sake of enjoying 
each other's society. By no means. They 
had higher and nobler objects. 

Though required by the dying command 
of the Saviour to go into all the world, and 
preach the Gospel to every creature, they 
well knew that thev should obev the in- 
junction in the best manner by doing their 
work thoroughly. When they established 
a church, they could unite their wisdom in 
assisting its members in organising it. 
" Two eyes see more than one ;" and the 
united wisdom of four men in so weighty a 
business as that of setting up churches and 



DIFFERENT Q1 ALlFiCAITONS .] \ 

ordaining them ministers, is by no means 
too much. 

It is worthy of remark that no two of 
these four men were much alike, if we ex- 
cept Paul and Silas. Timothy was youn- 
ger and more inexperienced than the oth- 
1 ers. Luke was older. Paul was more ar- 
dent and bold. " Old men for counsel," 
we are told, " and young men for action." 
Here, then, they both were. Luke was 
old, and Timothy was young. 

One thing more. There is an evident 
advantage in letting those who are ignor- 
ant of the gospel see it acted out in more 
than one individual. When a man goes 
out a missionary alone, it is easy for those 
among whom he goes to think his religious 
' character assumed ; or at least to doubt 
whether he be not a different man from the 
rest of his countrymen. But when they see 
a large company of men together, and all of 
them not only preaching new doctrine, but 
acting it out in all their words and actions, 
their impressions are very different. The 



42 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

gospel is presented to them, as it were, in 
a greater variety of aspects, and it appears 
to form a more perfect and harmonious 
character. 

The practice of sending out many mis- 
sionaries in company, instead of scattering 
thera one by one, all over the earth, ap- 
pears to be now rapidly gaining ground in 
the world ; and many rejoice that it is. 
Experience, they say, ought to teach us 
that this is the best method. We see, at 
any rate, that this method was frequently 
adopted, 1800 years ago. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The missionaries embark for Europe. They touch at 
Samothracia. Arrive at Neapolis. Proceed to Phil- 
ippi. Account of Philippi. Curious Anecdote. Or- 
atories. The prayer meeting. Conversion of Lydia. 
The Pythoness. Trouble with her. Paul casts out 
her evil spirit. He and Silas imprisoned. Where 
Luke and Timothy were at this time, and why they 
were not imprisoned. 

We have now become acquainted, as it 
were, with the whole company whose track 
we propose to follow. We have seen how 
wonderfully and providentially they were 
brought together, and how well adapted 
they were for the great work in which they 
were employed. Having made every nec- 
essary arrangement at Troas, for their de- 
parture, in conformity to the indications °* 

4 



44 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

Providence in the vision of Paul, they now 
set sail from Troas for Macedonia.* 

Their course was northwest. The first 
place at which they touched on their pas- 
sage was Samothracia, though we do not 
know that any of them landed there. Sa- 
mothracia is a small island in the Egean 
sea, (or as it is now called, the Archipela- 
go.) It is about 70 miles from Troas. 
They appear to have arrived there the first 
day, and to have staid only during the 
night, for the next day they went on to Ne- 
apolis, which was about as much farther 
on, in the same direction. With the ad- 
vantage of a fair wind, it was only two days' 
sail from Troas to Neapolis. 

Neapolis was a small seaport in Mace- 

# Though the distance which they would have to sail 
was less than 150 miles, it was quite a long journey for 
those times. You will remember what was told you in 
the " First Foreign Mission," that they had no marin- 
er's compass in those days, so that they did not like to 
venture far out of sight of land in cloudy weather, 
though in clear weather they could get along very 
well ; for they could steer by the sun or stars. The 
present journey was probably performed in two days, 
without sailing much in the night ; besides, they were 
out of sight of land but a small part of the time. 



PHILIPPI 45 

donia, near the borders ot* Thrace. It is 
now called Napoli, and is an inconsidera- 
ble village. Of its former size or history 
we know but little, for we hardly find its 
name mentioned, except in connection with 
our present story. It is remarkable only as 
being the spot where the first christian mis- 
sionaries set foot on the continent of Eu- 
rope. They made no stay there, but hast- 
ed on to Philippi, probably by land. 

Philippi lay about fifteen miles westward 
of Neapolis, and on a little river called Ma- 
ritz about eight miles from the sea. When 
first built it had been called Datos, but it 
was repaired and made more beautiful by 
Philip, king of Macedon, the father of Al- 
exander thegreat, (or rather the guilty,) and 
called Philippi after his name. Near this 
place, as is generally supposed, a famous 
battle had been fought, about 90 years be- 
fore our missionaries were there, between 
Cassius and Brutus on the one side, and the 
emperor Augustus, and Mark Anthony on 
the other, in which Brutus and Cassius were 



46 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

defeated. It was quite a city, at that pe- 
riod ; but it is now a mere village ; though 
the ruins about it show very clearly w 7 hat it 
was. The place is meanly built, without 
fortifications, or a single good street. Its 
situation is so low and moist that the mud 
in the streets is sometimes one or two feet 
deep ; and stones are set up like posts to 
facilitate the progress of foot passengers. 
There are here the remains of several mon- 
uments, and of an amphitheatre.* 

Although Philippi lay within the bounds 
of Macedonia, it was a Roman city. Still 
it was not inhabited wholly by Romans, for 
there were many Jews within its walls, and 
at least one synagogue. There was also a 
proseuche or oratoryf here. It does notap- 



* Amphitheatres were very common in Roman cities. 
They were large buildings, constructed in either a cir- 
cular or an oval form, with seats one above another, 
and a large open space in the middle. In this open 
space the public amusements were conducted. The 
seats were for the spectators. 

t These oratories appear to have properly belonged to 
the synagogues, though built separately from them, and 
sometimes a great way off. They were commonly in 
fields and retired places, and were chiefly used for pray- 
er. In general, they were nncoveied, and unsheltered, 



PREACHING AT PHILIPP1. 47 

pear to have been within the city walls, but 
near the banks of a small stream, probably 
a branch of the Maritz, a little way from it. 

Luke, the writer of the Acts, says that 
Philippi was " a city of the first part of 
Macedonia, which led many of the learned 
critics into a dispute ; seme of them insist- 
ing that Luke must have been a little mis- 
taken. After a while, however, several 
coins were found, with some reading on 
them which explained the whole matter, 
and showed that Luke was correct. 

Whether the missionaries preached much 
within the walls of the city, till some time 
after their arrival, we are not informed. 
But they did not lose any time. The first 
Sabbath after their arrival they went to a 
Jewish prayer meeting, at the oratory we 
have just spoken of. The people who at- 
tended were principally ladies, but they 
welcomed these distinguished strangers a- 

except by the surrounding trees. These oratories were 
very numerous in Judea, and in the time of Tiberius 
Caesar, there were a few of them in the immediate 
neighborhood of Rome. The Jews sometimes used 
them for bathing, and for their numerous purifications, 

6* 



48 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

mong them, and when their worship was o- 
ver, Paul rose, and preached to them the 
first Christian sermon that was ever preach- 
ed on the continent of Europe. 

Among his hearers was a pious lady by 
the name of Lydia. She was not a native 
of Philippi, but came from Thyatira, a con- 
siderable city in Asia Minor, and had ta- 
ken up her residence in Philippi for the 
sake of her trade. She was a seller of pur- 
ple cloth, which was then very much valu- 
ed among the Pvomans. It is generally 
supposed she was wealthy — I know not 
why. She was indeed a merchant, but all 
merchants do not become wealthy. 

But if she was really wealthy, she was 
not much like some rich people in the 
world. Their time and thoughts are so 
constantly taken up with their business, 
that they are very apt to neglect religion. 
So few rich people ever become really pi- 
ous that the Saviour once said such a thing 
was more difficult than for a camel to go 
through the eye of a needle. Lydia, on 






LYDIA'S CONVERSION. 49 

the contrary, hearkened with very great 
pleasure to what Paul said, and being en- 
lightened and influenced by the Holy Spir- 
it she became a convert to Christianity, and 
was forthwith baptized by him, or at his or- 
ders or request. The rest of her household 
were baptized soon after. From these 
small beginnings a large church was, in a 
few years, collected and established atPbil- 
ippi, containing not only Jews, but Gen- 
tiles,* or heathen. 

Lydia was no sooner converted than she 
invited, and as it appears, urged the mis- 
sionaries to leave the place where they had 
thus far lodged in the city, and take up 
their residence with her ; probably from a 
desire to enjoy, as much as she convenient- 
ly could, their conversation and society. 
Some have supposed, and even asserted, 
that they had thus far been poorly accom- 
modated, and had lodged in one of the 
meanest parts of the city ; but I know not 

* The Jews called all other nations, except their own 
favored one, by the general name of Gentiles, which 
was much the same to them as heathen is to us. 

1* 



50 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

upon what authority. That they did not 
stop at the gayest and most expensive pub- 
lic houses, we may readily enough con- 
clude ; first, because they would not, in all 
probability, relish their society ; and sec- 
ondly, because they were not able. They 
were rather poor, all of them ; as missiona- 
ries usually are. 

But 1 do not think, on the other hand, 
that they would be likely to put up in a 
very mean place, if they could help it. 
The Saviour himself could dine or converse 
with mean,* and vicious people ; for he 
came into the world to seek and save and 
do them good ; and every true follower of 
his will, no doubt, imitate him. But there 
is a very great difference between spending 
an hour w r ith them, occasionally, and taking 

* When I speak of mean people, I would be under- 
stood not to refer to those who are deformed, or ugly, 
or ill dressed; nor yet to the poor or the ignorant; but 
to those who are intemperate, or lewd, or profane. I 
abhor, most sincerely, that propensity, which some peo- 
ple exhibit, who seem to say, in their conduct, to the 
poor and ignorant ; " Stand by, for I am holier than 
thou." Yet, at the same time, there are those with 
whom we cannot associate Ions:, without beino* denied. 



LODGINGS OF THE APOSTLES. 51 

up our lodgings, from week to week, with 
them. 

Taverns are not, certainly, the best pla- 
ces for christians. Still, as there are not 
always to be found, in every place, charita- 
ble Lydias, they are sometimes glad to take 
up with them. And when this is the case, 
they have nothing to do, but to make the 
best they can of it. They are not obliged 
to indulge in idle or wicked conversation, 
because the rest, at the table, do it. They 
are not obliged to drink wine and brandy 
at their dinners, because some of the com- 
pany are addicted to habits so pernicious. 
They are under no necessity of eating 
highly seasoned food, or of glutting them- 
selves with food of any kind. Nor is a 
boarder at a public house obliged to ab- 
sent himself from church on the Sabbath, 
because other boarders may do so, or join 
in sinful or criminal parties by night or by 
day. Who can conceive of our missiona- 
ries — even the youngest of them — as going 
out of the way, in any of these respects 6 ? 



xo2 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

Yet they were exposed to similar, if not ex- 
actly the same temptations, and were men 
of like passions with ourselves. 

Paul and his company had not been long 
at Philippi, before an event happened, 
which, in the end, led them into great 
trouble. 

A gentleman at Philippi had a slave.* 
who pretended to have the power of sooth- 
saying or prophesying. You probably 
know that almost all nations, in ancient 
times, not only Jews, Greeks, and Romans, 
but other people, had their magicians, their 
sorcerers, their interpreters of dreams, their 
necromancers, their soothsayers, or their 
astrologers ; and that they had them in Eu- 
rope as well as in Asia. You probably 
know, too, that it was contrary to the laws 
of God, as given to Moses, for them to do 

* Slavery, dreadful as it is, has been practised in all 
ages of the world. Even Christianity, which is certain- 
ly, in its principles, opposed to it. has not yet been able 
to eradicate it from the earth. It is to be hoped, how- 
ever, for the honor of human nature, as well as for the 
sake of pure and undented religion, that it will not con- 
tinue much longer. 



THE SOOTHSAYER. Jj 

any thing in this way, or for people to con- 
sult them. But the people of Philippi 
were not all Jews ; and some of them en- 
couraged sorcery, soothsaying, &c. 

The slave of whom I have spoken, was 
called a Pythoness. Her business, chiefly, 
was to be a kind of oracle, and utter am- 
biguous predictions,* like the conjurers of 
the present day. She also, for money, pre- 
tended to foretell what would happen to 
people. She would also pretend to point 
out the authors of concealed mischiefs, and 
discover stolen goods. She seems to have 
been owned by several masters, and there 
can be no doubt, from the account given, 

* Oracles were very common, at one period of the 
world. But there were oracles of various kinds. The 
most striking was in the case of young Samuel. Here 
the Lord called Samuel in a voice so plain, that he mis- 
took it for that of Eli, several times. There are many 
instances on record, where God spoke to mankind from 
some temple or sanctuary, and gave to them certain im- 
portant information. These were oracles of divine 
truth. 

But the heathen nations, as well as the Jews, had 
their temples, and their oracles. In these cases, the 
voice which was heard was from some priest or priest- 
ess, either openly, or concealed. Most of the heathen 
oracles, were, however, very obscure, and it is surpri- 



54 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

that she was a very profitable slave. She 
seems, from the account which follows, to 
have been possessed, even, with an evil 
spirit. 

As the missionaries were going to the or- 
atory, one day, this Pythoness followed 
them, crying out as they went through the 
streets, " These men are the servants of the 
Most High God, which show unto us the 
way of salvation." At first they took very 
little notice of her, but pursued their course, 
and attended to their own business. But 
as she continued to follow them, in this 
way, w r hen they went abroad, day after day, 
they at length grew tired of her. No 
doubt, she sometimes drew great crowds a- 

sing that men of sense could have ever placed any re- 
liance on them. And yet they did. When a person 
wished to consult the oracle, if he came on the proper 
day and proposed his question in a proper manner, he 
generally had an answer of some sort ; but it was often 
in such a wav that, let the event be as it mio-ht, the ora- 
cle could not be mistaken. Thus when Croesus wish- 
ed to know of the oracle at Delphi whether he should 
attack Cyrus, he was told; "If Croesus crosses the 
river Halys, he will overthrow a great empire." This 
he interpreted in his own favor, of course ; but though 
he was defeated and overthrown, the oracle remained 
true. We see, then, the folly of their trusting in them. 



PAUL'S REBUKE. 5f, 

round them ; and it is possible that many 
were led, in this way, to hear Paul preach, 
and perhaps to believe the gospel, who 
might not otherwise have ever been con- 
verted. But Paul and his company well 
knew that the truths they taught did not 
need such testimony, and besides, they do 
not appear to have been fond of such 
scenes of public excitement. Mobs are al- 
ways to be dreaded. However forcible 
they may seem to be to an individual, there 
is no reliance to be placed on them. 
Though they should testify their applause 
by carrying him on their shoulders through 
the streets to-day, they may be for crucify- 
ing or hanging him to-morrow. 

Paul, after enduring the cries of the Py- 
thoness long enough, at length turned to 
her, and, in the name of Jesus Christ, com- 
manded the evil spirit which possessed her 
to leave her, immediately. And that very 
hour, the spirit left her, and she was at 
once restored to herself again, and was 
cured of her soothsaying. 

5 



56 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION 

But now a new trouble arose to the mis- 
sionaries. The owners of the slave, finding 
her no longer profitable to them by her 
soothsaying and juggling, determined to be 
revenged on the missionaries, seized Paul 
and Silas, who were doubtless considered 
as the leaders of the company, dragged 
them to the market-place, to the under or 
inferior judges, and afterward to the high- 
er magistrates, accusing them of disturbing 
the public peace and teaching bad doc- 
trines ; such as Roman citizens could not 
lawfully receive or believe, 

There was, indeed, no law in existence, 
to hinder the Christians from preaching 
their doctrines in as public a manner as 
they chose ; but the accusation of the Phil- 
ippians was founded on an old law of the 
Romans, which, though it forbid the wor- 
ship of strange gods, had nothing to do 
with the present case ; and one would think 
this might have been seen, and that Paul and 
Silas would have been immediately acquit- 
ted by the magistrates. But they did not 



THE APOSTLES BEATEN. 57 

have a hearing. The whole multitude was 
enraged against them, and no doubt clam- 
orous ; and the magistrates took it for grant- 
ed they were guilty, and never put them 
upon trial. In conformity to the custom of 
the country, in regard to criminals found 
guilty, the magistrates commanded their 
garments to be torn from them, and the lic- 
tors, as they were called, were directed to 
beat their backs and shoulders with rods, 
and then cast them into prison. These 
cruel orders appear to have been fully obey- 
ed. Paul and Silas were cast into prison, 
and particular orders given to the jailor to 
keep them safely. 

Where Luke and Timothy were all this 
while, and whether they were ill-treated by 
the enraged multitude or not, does not 
plainly appear. There is no reason to be- 
lieve, however, that they fled, as the disci- 
ples of Christ did when he was taken by 
his enemies to be crucified. That example 
with all its painful circumstaoces,was doubt- 
less familiar to their minds, and proved a 



58 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

warning to them, not to desert their fellow- 
companions, in distress; at least there was 
scarce a possibility of their being able to 
escape, if their enemies chose to pursue 
them. As Luke was now an old man, and 
probably had but little to say or do, com- 
pared with Paul and Silas, and as Timothy 
was young, it is likely they were not med- 
dled with. The mob wreaked their revenge 
on Paul and Silas, and left the rest, it is 
supposed, to go at liberty. 

What course Luke and Timothy might 
have taken, had Paul and Silas been kept 
long in confinement, I do not know. Paul 
was so necessary an agent in their mission, 
that it is possible it might have been aban- 
doned. I do not think so, however. That 
God who has promised " As thy days, so 
shall thy strength be,' 5 would probably have 
continued them in the work, and sustained 
them in all their efforts. But they were 
not to be put to this trial ; as we shall see 
in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER V. 

Description of eastern jails. Stocks. Behavior of Paul 
and Silas in their dungeon. Midnight prayer and 
praise. A miraculous earthquake. The jailer and 
his household converted, instructed, and baptized. 
Paul and Siias liberated. Conduct of the magistrates. 
Noble conduct of Paul and Silas. Reflections. 
Paul, Silas, and Timothy depart for Thessalonica. 

The common jail or prison of eastern 
countries, was a place in which they con- 
fined the worst of their criminals. In the 
centre of it was the inner prison, a kind of 
pit or dungeon, filled with deep mud or mire. 
Into this wretched place did the jailer 
" thrust," as the Scripture expresses it, Paul 
and Silas. This jailer appears to have been 
a hard-hearted unfeeling man, and wheth- 
er he had the power of treating his prison- 

5* 



(30 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

ers kindly, when he chose to do so. or not, 
he does not appear to have been disposed 
to exercise any clemency in the case of 
Paul and Silas ; but on the contrary, to 
treat them as harshly as he could. At the 
command to keep them safely, he not only 
ordered them into the inner prison, but had 
their feet put in the stocks. 

The stocks used in Roman jails were heavy 
pieces of wood, so contrived as to press 
hard upon the limbs of the prisoners, and 
also, at the same time, prevent their pla- 
cing them in a natural position. 

Think, reader, of the condition of these 
excellent men ! Innocent as the lamb of the 
flock, and yet treated like the most guilty ; 
— unoffending as the infant, treated like the 
most hardened transgressors. Their limbs 
were stretched out, in a painful position, 
with a heavy weight on them ; they were 
placed, notwithstanding the mud and filth, 
upon their backs, in total darkness, and 
without food or drink. Xor must the con- , 
dition of their bodies, smarting under the 



/ 



PAUL IN CIHC1A. Gl 

scourging they had just received, be forgot- 
ten. We can hardly conceive of a more 
painful condition, in which human nature 
can be placed. Surely these tortures must 
have been extreme ; especially after having 
been there a little while. 

But did they complain ? Did they repent 
of the boldness which had brought them 
hither % Did they murmur inwardly at the 
dealings of Providence °l No such thing. 
They had done their duty. They had done 
what they supposed God would have them 
do, and they were willing to put their en- 
tire confidence in him, and wait with pa- 
tience to see what he would do with them. 

4 

Nay, more than this; they gloried in 
their tribulation ; rejoicing that they were 
counted worthy to suffer shame for the 
name of Christ. 

It is not acting the part of a Christian to 
run into danger, unnecessarily, but rather 
of an enthusiast. But when, in the way of 
what we sincerely believe to be our duty, 
we suffer, it behooves us to bear it patient- 

7 



62 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

ly ; remembering that, let us endure ever so 
much, we can never endure more than 
Christ has for us. 

We may well suppose, however, that 
they did not sleep. But do you think Tim- 
othy and Luke slept 9 Is it not probable 
they were engaged in the most fervent 
prayer to God in beha ] f of their brethren? 
They could not have forgotten how Peter, 
though imprisoned at Jerusalem and sleep- 
ing between two soldiers, bound in chains, 
was miraculously liberated. Surely, then, 
they would not fail to offer up the most 
hearty prayers in behalf of Paul and Silas. 
And how do we know but their escape, like 
that of Peter, was the answer of God to 
prayer ? 

As to Paul and Silas, we know very well 
what they were doing. Though they were 
confined in darkness, and smarting under 
torture, they could hold intercourse with 
each other, and with God. Their tongues 
and their minds and souls were yet free, 
and they could use them. In the very mid- 



AN EARTHQUAKE. 03 

die of the night they prayed, and sang 
praises to God ; and that so loudly that 
their fellow-prisoners, in the outer-prison, 
heard them. 

But while they were probably wondering 
at the strangeness of the sounds which they 
heard, an event took place, which was 
stranger still. There was a great earth- 
quake, which not only spread terror through 
the city, as is usual on such occasions, but 
affected the prison in a manner still more 
striking. The doors flew open, the chains 
on the prisoners throughout the prison fell 
off, and the building shook to its very foun- 
dation. 

The noise of the earthquake, and the 
confusion it had caused in the city, awoke 
the jailor, who, starting up. saw the prison 
doors all open, and supposing the prison- 
ers had all escaped, drew his sword, and 
was about to destroy himself; fearing, 
no doubt, that the escape of the prisoners 
would be charged to his cwn negligence 
or treachery. But before he had time to 



64 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

commit the fatal deed, Paul, who knew — 
perhaps by revelation from God — what he 
was about to do, called out to him with a 
loud voice, and with the utmost earnest- 
ness, " Do thyself no harm, for we are all 
here." Why none of the prisoners had fled, 
it is not easy to say ; and how Paul knew 
they had not, is equally unaccountable, 
(shut up as he and Silas were, in a dark 
dungeon,) except by supposing that he had 
information in a miraculous manner from 
God's Spirit, or from some heavenly angel 
or messenger. 

Indeed the whole affair was miraculous. 
Earthquakes were common in Asia Minor, 
it is true , but why should one take place, 
just at this critical moment in the affairs of 
Paul and Silas ? Why should it unlock the 
doors and loosen the bolts of the prison ; 
and even shake off the chains of the pris- 
oners ? Was such a thing common 9 Amid 
the earthquakes which have happened in 
the old world, and also in the new (as, for 
instance, in South America) were the pris- 




THE JAILER HUMBLED. 65 

oners in the city prisons ever released in 
this manner? Prisons, as well as other 
buildings, have been shaken down; but 
when or where did the chains of those who 
were confined in them become loosened or 
fall off? Another thing. The prisoners 
were not so unaccustomed to earthquakes, 
as to be very much frightened and dare 
not attempt to escape, through fear ; at 
least I should think so : why then did they 
not flee for their lives, as soon as they found 
themselves at liberty, and the doors all 
open ? 

1 have said that the jailer was about to 
kill himself. The voice of Paul, however, 
checked his rashness, and calling for a light, 
he sprang into the prison, to Paul and 
Silas. His hardened heart was softened by 
the grace of God. They were his prison- 
ers still, but he was also willing they should 
become his teachers, and desirous to sit at 
their feet, and hear the glad tidings of the 
gospel. He could not, indeed, set them at 
liberty ; but having no longer any fears 

9* 






66 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

that they would endeavor to escape, he was 
ready to take them out of their dark, muddy, 
filthy dungeon, and make them as comfort- 
able as the nature of the case would per- 
mit. 

It is not to be supposed that he neglected 
his duty as a jailer, for the sake of convers- 
ing with Paul and Silas and making them 
comfortable. No doubt he shut the doors, 
to secure his prisoners, and fastened their 
shackles again. Our Father in heaven 
does not require that in seeking our salva- 
tion, and yielding our affections and our 
allegiance to him, we should forget our du- 
ties to our fellow creatures. He says, in- 
deed, " My son, give me thy heart ;" but 
he never says, Thou shalt not love thy neigh- 
bor, or Thou shalt not perform thy 'duties 
towards him. 

But no sooner had he put every thing in 
a proper and safe condition, than he sent 
to have Paul and Silas taken out of the 
stocks, and brought into the outer prison, 
collected his whole family together and 



THE JAILERS INQUIRY 67 

believing that they were indeed the minis- 
ters of God, and taught the right way of 
salvation through Jesus Christ, he begged, 
in the most earnest manner, that they would 
tell him what he must do to be saved. 
Paul and Silas accordingly preached to 
them ; and no doubt, in such circumstan- 
ces, they preached eloquently. 

Some who do not believe the bible, or 

who wish to explain certain things in such 

a way as will fall in with the notions they 

have before hand, say that when the jailer 

inquired what he must do to be saved, he 

only wanted to know how he should escape 

being blamed by the government. But 

this is quite unlikely. For what reason had 

he to think that Paul and Silas understood 

such matters ? And besides what could he 

fear*? The prisoners were all safe. But 

above all, let us look at the consequences. 

Paul and Silas told him, in answer to his 

question ; " Believe on the Lord Jesus 

Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy 

house." A most singular way to escape 

7* 



$8 SECOND FOREIGiN MISSION. 

blame from a human government, and es- 
pecially in the present excitement against 
the apostles of this Jesus. Then, his 
household was to believe and be saved, too. 
But what had his family to do with it c l' 
Would the Roman laws make them suffer, 
for the faults of the jailer ? 

Let us look a little further still. I have 
not told you all. The jailer called his fam- 
ily together immediately, and Faul and Si- 
las instructed them. " They spake unto 
him," the jailer, " the word of the Lord" not 
the words of the law, or of the Roman gov- 
ernment ; " and to all that were in his 
house." One would suppose that no think- 
ing person could mistake as to the meaning 
of the whole story. The truth is there was 
a great miracle, and a wonderful conver- 
sion ) and it seems next to impossible for 
reasonable people, who believe in the bible 
at all, to deny it. 

Some may wonder how the apostle could 
be so speedily reconciled to the jailer, as 
he seems to have been ; and this, too, at 



THE JAiLOR BAPTIZED. 59 

m 

the very time when he was suffering severe 
bodily pain from the infliction of stripes 
which he did not deserve, and from addi- 
tional cruelties which the jailer chose to 
make him suffer. But we must remember 
that this great apostle was not led by the 
spirit of the world. As a christian, a fol- 
lower of his ascended Saviour, he knew 
nothing of retaliation or revenge. With 
him all was meekness, gentleness, and for- 
giveness. 

The jailer was melted with such doctrine 
as Paul taught, and especially when he be- 
held such a striking proof of its effects on 
the hearts and the lives of these two prison- 
ers. The hearts of his whole household 
were also evidently affected, and as it ap- 
pears afterward, they all embraced the gos- 
pel. 

It was customary in those times to be 
baptized, at once, as soon as they become 
believers in the gospel. Accordingly the 
jailer and his family had no sooner believed 
than he went and made the necessary pre- 



70 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

parations, and had himself and family bap- 
tized. He did not do it however till he 
had performed, like the good Samaritan, the 
kindly office of washing and dressing their 
wounds. 

When the baptism was over, he took them 
into his house and gave them some refresh- 
ment. It was now a joyful time among 
them. Paul and Silas must have rejoiced — 
if not at their escape from torture, and from 
a dismal dungeon — that God had changed, 
in so wonderful a manner, the disposition 
and character of the jailer. The jailer and 
his house-hold rejoiced that mercy and for- 
giveness had been extended to them at 
such a time, and in a manner so miraculous, 
as well as so unexpected. 

The night was now very far spent. As 
soon as it was day, the magistrates, who 
had probably heard what had happened, 
for such news flies very swiftly, sent w r ord 
to the jailer to set the missionaries at liber- 
ty. The jailer told them what his orders 
were, and bid them go where they pleas- 




PAUL A ROMAN CITIZEN. 71 

ed. But Paul hesitated. You may won- 
« der why. I will try to tell you. 
9 Though Paul was born in Tarsus, which 
! was not properly a part of the Roman em- 
pire, yet it was not very uncommon, in 
i those days, for the Roman emperors to grant 
to certain distant cities the privileges of 
t citizenship ; that is of being Romans, as 
. much as if they were born in Italy ; and 
Tarsus was one of these favored cities. 
Paul, therefore, was a Roman citizen. The 
Philippians did not know this, however. 
tHad they known it, they would never have 
dared to treat him and Silas in the manner 
they did, beating them, and then sending 
them to prison without a trial. 

Now Paul well knew that they had done 
wrong, and though he did not wish to be 
revenged on them, or even to humble them 
for his own private gratification, yet out of 
regard to other christians, who might come 
to Philippi afterward, and who might, in 
this way, be likely to receive more respect- 
ful treatment, he was determined not to be 

9 



72 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

dismissed from the prison till the magis- 
trates had been made to feel a sense of the 
ill treatment they had been guilty. It was 
on this account that when the jailer told 
them they were at liberty, he refused to go. 
" They have beaten us openly, uncondem- 
ned, being Romans, and have cast us into 
the prison ; and now, do they thrust us out 
privily !■ Nay, verily, let them come, them- 
selves, and fetch us out." 

And they had it to do. Paul and Silas 
would not leave the prison on any other 
condition. It appears that the magistrates 
were even glad to get rid of them so easily. 
For when the lictors who had been sent to 
the jailer with orders to have them set at 
liberty, went back and told the magistrates 
that they would not go, and gave their rea- 
sons, they were afraid. They were liable 
to be brought to an account — and perhaps 
lose their lives — for having treated, with in- 
dignity, a Roman citizen. They not only 
went immediately to the prison, but were 
very urgent. They brought them out, as 



, 



THE APOSTLES LIBERATED. 73 

the scripture expresses it. The idea seems 
to me to be that they hurried them out. 
And not only so, they pressed them to leave 
the city. 

Some may wonder why Paul did not tell 
them he was a Roman citizen, when they 
were beating him. The only reason I can 
think of, is, that the people, and even the 
magistrates themselves, were so much ex- 
cited that it would have done no good. 

It mav still be doubted by some of our 
readers whether the spirit which Paul and 
Silas manifested, in refusing to go out of 
the prison till the magistrates themselves 
came, in a public manner, and conducted 
them out, was a truly christian spirit; — and 
whether the Savior, had he been placed in 
similar circumstances, would have acted in 
the same manner. But had they gone pri- 
vately away, as soon as the orders came, 
would it not have appeared to many people, 
the same thing as acknowledging that they 
had been justly imprisoned °l On the con- 
trary, by having the magistrates bring them 

8 



74 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

out publicly, was it not the same thing as 
compelling them to acknowledge that they 
were innocent, and had been wickedly and 
unjustly imprisoned? 

It is evident, therefore, that there was 
nothing unchristian in Paul's conduct in 
this instance, though we do not suppose, 
nor does the Bible ever say, that he was by 
any means a perfect man. 

One of the strongest proofs of the truth 
of the Bible — I mean that God inspired ho- 
ly men to write the Bible, — is, that it tells 
of the faults of good men, as well as of their 
excellencies. We must remember, also, 
that they are often faults of the writer of 
the book himself; for you probably know 
that many of the books in the Bible were 
written by the very men whose lives they 
give an account of, or whose names they 
are called by. Now would men who were 
wicked enough to forge or invent such 
books, tell of their own failings ? 

But to return to our story. The magis- 
trates, as we have already seen, not satisfi- 



THE APOSTLES DEPART. 75 

ed with getting Paul and Silas liberated, 
were urgent to have them leave the city.* 
It is probable they were about ready to 
leave it at the time of their imprisonment ; 
and they were not the men to stay in it, af- 
ter their work was finished, merely out of 
spite. So they left the prison and went to 
their lodgings at the house of Lydia, where 
Luke and Timothy and many more of their 
christian brethren appear to have been col- 
lected together. They spent a little time 
with them, comforting them and rejoicing 
with them ; and then set out on their jour- 
ney to Thessalonica. 

* Is it not probable that Paul and Silas might have 
asked and obtained a large sum of money of the magis- 
trates, for their abuse and detention, had they asked it? 
And why should they not ask it? They had much need 
of money to spend, on their journey. 1 can only say 
that they were christians. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Journey from Philippi to Amphipolis. Description of 
that city. Journey to Apollonia. What became of 
Luke ? — They arrive at Thessaloniea. Account of 
this city. Its modern aspect. They stop at the 
house of Jason. Preaching in the synagogue. Their 
success. Labored on week days at tent making. 
Ought ministers to labor with their hands? A mob 
raised. Evils of idleness. The mob attack the house 
of Jason. Seize Jason. Liberate him. The mis- 

.„ y „ „„„,™, 

The first place of any importance which 
the missionaries passed on their way west- 
ward to Thessaloniea, was Amphipolis. 
This lay near the sea, by the mouth of a 
small river of the name of Strymon ; 
which, running in a circuitous manner al- 
most around it } gave it the name, Amphip- 



THE APOSTLES' JOURNEY. 77 

olis. * This city had been built, at that 
time about 550 years, and was the capital of 
one part of Macedonia. It was a place of 
considerable trade, and contained about 
10,000 inhabitants. The distance from 
Philippi to A.mphipolis was about twenty 
miles. 

How long the company staid at Amphip- 
olis, it is difficult to determine. Probably 
■not very long. They next proceeded to 
Apollonia. This was a place of less note 
than Amphipolis, lying to the southward of 
it, and not exactly on the road thither. 

It does not appear that they staid long, 
in either of these two latter places. There 
were no synagogues there, so far as we 
know, and probably few if any Jews : and 
we do not read of their making any con- 
verts. From Apollonia, they went towards 
Thessalonica. 

The reader has not been informed 
whether Luke accompanied them on their 

* This name is made up of two Greek words viz.: 
Amphi ? around, and polis, city. 

% 



78 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

journey from Philippi to Thessalonica. 
There is much reason to think that he did 
not. In his account of what happened to 
the company, instead of saying we and us* 
he says they, continually, till they returned 
toAntioch; and even longer. The first 
account we have of him after the imprison- 
ment of Paul and Silas at Philippi, was sev- 
eral vears afterward when Paul, having 
been on a second tour to Greece, was re- 
turning through Philippi. On sailing from 
this place to go to Troas, we find Luke 
with him again. From all these circum- 
stances, and many others, there is reason to 
believe that Paul and Silas and Timothy 
left Luke at Philippi to take care of the 
church they collected there before the im- 
prisonment; and that he staid there till 
Paul returned from his second European 
tour when he went with him to Jerusalem, 
and afterward to Rome. 

Calmet, in his dictionary, says expressly, 
that Luke was left at Philippi : which w T as 
probably the case. But it is impossible 



THESSALONICA. 79 

that he or any one else can know with cer- 
tainty. The event, however, is quite prob- 
able. 

Paul and Silas and Timothy had now ar- 
rived at Thessalonica. This w r as a large 
city, and had at least one Jewish synagogue 
in it. It is even now a large city, having 
as many inhabitants in it as Boston. But 
you must not compare it to Boston for 
splendor, wealth or business. Its present 
name is Salonica. As the missionaries 
spent some time here, and their preaching 
was attended with considerable success, it 
may be well to describe the place, briefly. 

Thessalonica was situated at the head of 
a branch of the Archipelago, called the 
Thermaic Gulf, or more commonly, the 
Gulf of Thessalonica. It is not far from 
one hundred miles westward of Philippi, 
270 westward of Constantinople, and 200 
northwest of Athens. The city is now 
about five miles in circumference. It 
stands on a steep side hill, descending from 
the northeast to the bay, and is surrounded 

10 



SO SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

by a very lofty wall, built of stone. At the 
present time it contains about thirty church- 
es, of the Greek church, fifty Jewish syna- 
gogues, and fifty Mohammedan mosques, 
A very different appearance, in all proba- 
bility, from what it presented when Paul 
was there. Then, there was one syna- 
gogue, perhaps more : the rest of the pub- 
lic buildings were heathen temples. 

At the top of the city wall, at the high- 
est part, is a fortress with seven towers. 
From this point of elevation, which over- 
looks the whole city, and harbor, and much 
of the bay, the prospect is very fine. Were 
not the streets narrow, and irregular, and 
many of the houses rather mean and wretch- 
ed, the prospect would hardly be exceeded 
by many in the world. The domes of the 
churches and the minarets of the mosques 
in Salonica, rising amidst other buildings, 
and surrounded by cypress trees, give this 
place a most singular, but by no means un- 
pleasant appearance. Salonica, in com- 
merce, is the next place in Turkey to Con- 
stantinople. 




HOUSE OF JASON. gl 

This city, when first built, was called 
Italis, but Philip, the father of Alexander 
the great, afterwards called it Thessalonica, 
in remembrance of a great victory which 
he obtained over the people of Thessaly. 
It is now, as I have already told you, called 
Salonica. There are to be found a few re- 
mains of its ancient architecture, pillars, 
triumphal arches, &c. but they are by no 
means numerous. 

When our missionaries arrived at Thes- 
salonica they repaired to the house of one 
Jason, a Jew, who appears to have been a 
distant relative of Paul, where they made it 
their head quarters as long as they staid in 
the city. 

The first sabbath after their arrival found 
Paul — as might have been expected — in the 
synagogue, ready to speak a word for his 
Lord and master, if he had an opportunity. 
This, we may be sure, soon offered. It 
will be recollected perhaps, as stated in the 
"First Foreign Mission," that, when the 
Jewish service was over, any stranger pres- 



52 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

ent was considered at liberty to make re- 
marks to the people, on any religious sub- 
ject; and sometimes they were invited to 
do so, if they were persons of any distinc- 
tion. Paul received manv such invitations ; 
and there is much probability that he wait- 
ed to be invited, on the present occasion. 

In his first sermon to the Jews at Thes- 
salonica, it was PauTs great object to prove, 
in the first place, that it was to be expect- 
ed that the Messiah they had so long look* 
ed for should suffer and die, and rise again 
from the dead. This he proved from their 
own books, the scriptures, as they were 
then called ; that is, the Old Testament. 
In the second place, he endeavored, with 
all his might and elocuence, to convince 
them that Christ, whom he preached to 
them, was the same expected Messiah. 
This was the substance of his preaching for 
the three first sabbaths after he arrived. 

Where Timothv was we are not told. I 
suppose he was at Thessaionica, all this 
while. Xor can there, indeed .be much 



PAUL'S SUCCESS. S3 

doubt of it, when we consider what hap- 
pened afterward. But it is unnecessary to 
advert to that subject now ; I shall mention 
it in its proper place. 

Paul does not appear to have preached 
here on week days, for the first three 
weeks. It is probable that he confined 
his instructions to the Jews. — If you ask 
why he did so, when he was divinely ap- 
pointed to the special work of an apostle 
to the Gentiles ; the reply is, that the Bible 
uniformly states it to have been the purpose 
of God, from the very first, to have the gos- 
pel preached in this way. There are many 
reasons for this, which might be mention- 
ed, if we had room; besides which there 
were doubtless many reasons existing in 
the Divine mind, which he has not seen fit 
to reveal to us. 

His labors at Thessalonica were not 
wholly without success. Some of the Jews 
believed, and finally many of the devout 
Greeks, as they were called. These were 
probably Grecian proselytes to the Jewish 

12* 



$4 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

faith. Luke, in the Acts, calls the believ- 
ing Greeks " a great multitude." — [t is not 
improbable that after the first three sab- 
baths, the preaching of both Paul and Silas 
was wholly confined, for a while, to these 
Greeks, and that they had the most unex- 
ampled success, among them. Several em- 
inent women of the place, also came over 
and embraced the faith. 

We find from the second chapter of the 
first Epistle from Paul to the Thessaloni- 
ans, (and this letter was probably written 
soon after the missionaries, in pursuing this 
journey, came to Athens,) that he and Silas 
employed themselves at Thessalonica, dur- 
ing week days. This they did to support 
themselves and Timothy ; for they were 
unwilling to live at the expense of their 
new converts ; some of whom were proba- 
bly poor. We may infer, very naturally, 
that Silas, as well as Paul, was a tent-mak- 
er ; though there is nothing certain on the 
subject. 

We may see, from the example of Paul 



MINISTERS 1 SUPPORT. 85 

1 

the great importance of having every min- 
ister know how to work. Would it not be 
a good thing if every christian child was 
obliged to be taught some one useful trade, 
just as it was among the Jews ? It could do 
them no harm, and it might prove the occa- 
sion of very great good. 

Ministers ought not, it is true, to be compel- 
led to labor. It is no more than right and 
proper that they who preach the gospel, 
" should live of the gospel." And it usual- 
ly will be so. If a minister goes straight 
forward and does his duty, the people will 
rarely let him starve or freeze. I do not 
say that such a thing might not happen 
once in a thousand times ; but I doubt it. 
The Thessalonians, for any thing we can 
learn from what Paul says in his letter to 
them, would have supplied their wants, had 
the missionaries been willing to be charge- 
able to them. But for reasons which we 
do not very well know, Paul did not think 
it expedient to let them do it. He and Si- 

10* 



S6 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

las chose rather to labor hard, by day anc 
by night, 

What they wanted of much money, when 
they were charitably sustained by Jason, 
may be a question with some. They 
should remember, however, that travellers 
have other wants besides food and drink. 
Clothes and sandals will wear out, ferries 
and bridges must be crossed, in travelling ; 
and bills sometimes must be paid for food 
and lodging. They did not find a Jason at 
every place where they stopped on the 
road, nor in every city. It costs no small 
sum to travel, even if we travel on foot, as 
our missionaries did. 

The success of Paul and Silas in Thessa- 
lonica became so great, and such multi- 
tudes believed, not only of the Greciar 
proselytes, but probably of the idolatrou 
Greeks and other Gentiles also, that th< 
Jews began to grow envious, and to preju 
dice the minds of the people against them. 
It was not long before they found means to 




MOBS. 87 

collect together quite a mob, consisting as 
mobs usually do, of the meaner sort of the 
people. The truth is, that ingenious, but 
wicked men, either by the arts of persua- 
sion, or by promising money, can raise a 
mob, almost any where ; especially in large 
cities. There are always many idle and un- 
principled people in large towns and cities, 
lingering about markets, taverns, court- 
houses, post-offices and other public places, 
ready to do almost any sort of mischief, es- 
pecially if excited and set on by the hope 
of some kind of reward ; and sometimes al- 
most without the hope of any thing. Peo- 
ple cannot very well remain long idle. 
They had about as lieve do mischief. 

You may sometimes find good natured 
well meaning boys, drawn into trouble, 
solely by venturing among these idle but 
more unprincipled fellows, and joining them 
in their tricks. Boys always hate to retreat 
when they get into a mischievous frolic. 
They are too proud for that. — The best 



88 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

way is to keep ourselves employed at some- 
thing useful to ourselves or others — play, 
work, or. study ; — and not begin to venture 
in idle company. 

The Jews at Thessaloniea, as has already 
been observed, found means to raise a mob 
against the missionaries. Greatly angry 
that the benefits they had refused, — the 
glad tidings they had despised — should not 
only be offered to Greeks and idolaters, but 
should be gladly accepted by them, they 
were determined to wreak their revenge. 
Probably they succeeded in inflaming the 
minds of the mob, partly by persuading 
them that the missionaries w T ere bad men, 
and partly by promising them some sort of 
gain. 

It seems that the missionaries had so ma- 
ny friends in Thessaloniea, that they chose 
not to be so bold as to attack them in the 
streets. Or else the fit came upon them at 
a time when the missionaries might have 
been expected to be at home ; for the first 



JASON ACCUSED. S9 

attack was made on Jason's house, mean- 
ing, in this way, to compel Jason to bring 
them out and deliver them up. 

But they did not find them. If they 
were at home they had probably hid them- 
selves ; but the greater probability is that 
they were not in. Enraged still more at 
not finding them, they seized on Jason him- 
self; and not contented with that, they laid 
their hands on some of their Jewish breth- 
ren, who had lately become believers. 
These they dragged before the magistrates 
and charged them with harboring unprinci- 
pled and traitorous men : men who, they 
said, would turn the world, if they could, 
upside down. 

But their heaviest charge was against Ja- 
son, for receiving them into his house. It 
seems that a Roman decree had been pas- 
sed, not long before this, that no person 
within the bounds of the Roman emperor's 
dominions, should take to himself the title 
of king, without the emperor's direct and 
plain permission. The missionaries, they 

12 



90 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

said, had been teaching that there was 
another king, one Jesus ; and Jason had 
encouraged them in spreading doctrines so 
treasonable. This was the ground of their 
accusation, and this subject they pressed 
upon the magistrates, in a loud and clamor- 
ous manner. 

It is highly probable that the state of 
things had become such that all hope of 
doing any more good at Thessalonica was 
at an end. When it was evening, and all 
was once more quiet in the city, Jason and 
the other disciples of the missionaries per- 
suaded them to leave their hiding places 
and go to some other city. The conclu- 
sion was that they should proceed toBerea, 
about 40 miles westward. The missiona- 
ries usually travelled on foot ; at least so it 
appears ; but from the language of the Bi- 
ble, "the brethren sent them away by night 
to Berea," it is probable they rode in this 
instance. Thither they arrived safely, the 
next morning. 

Before closing this chapter, 1 ought to 



PAUL'S SUCCESS. <j j 

slate that judging from the Epistles or let- 
ters of Paul to the Thessalonians, as well 
as from a number of other circumstances, 
there is much reason to believe that the 
missionaries staid in Thessalonica several 
months, and were the means of founding 
.one or more flourishing churches ; and ap- 
pointed over them their regular and appro- 
priate officers. One writer says they made 
"innumerable converts' there. This is 
saying a great deal. 1 shall not venture 
quite so far ; for my readers will strongly 
suspect that the whole population of Thes- 
salonica was not " innumerable." 

11 



CHAPTER VII. 

Berea. Description of it. Character of the people. 
Reflections. Condition of the missionaries. Luke- 
Timothy. Thoughts on self denial and the mission- 
ary spirit. Kow Paul and Silas and Timothy behav- 
ed in the common concerns of life. Their labors and 
success in Beiea. The Thessalonian mob follow 
them. They excite the Bereans against them. Paul 
sent away by sea. 250 miles, to Athens. 

Bsrea, as we have already seen, was 
about forty miles to the westward of Thes- 
salonica, on another part of- the same bay 
on which the latter was situated. It is 
said to have been, at that time, a great and 
populous city, but at present, it is hardly 
known. 

The Jews of Berea were a very different 
sort of people from those in Thessalonica. 



CANDOR OF THE BEREANS. 93 

Luke, in the Acts, when describing them, 
says they were " more noble." The reason 
he assigns for this praise is that they 
searched the scriptures daily, to see wheth- 
er the things which Faul stated in his 
preaching w T ere correct. 

Por Paul, who was never idle, had no 
sooner an opportunity, than we find him 
again preaching, in the synagogue. We 
find the people hearing him, too, with great 
interest, and with minds open to convic- 
tion. 

This conduct was indeed " more noble." 
Mankind are so generally under the influ- 
ence of prejudice, in a greater or less de- 
gree, that when we find an instance of a 
people wholly free from it, w 7 e ought to feel 
unmingled pleasure. Here was such a 
people ; strong in their opinions and faith, 
as we can imagine, yet hearing as if for 
their lives, and ready to believe according 
to evidence. 

Our travellers were now nearly a thou- 
sand miles from Antioch, and in the midst 



94 SECOiND FOREIGN MISSION. 

of strangers. This was a long journey for 
that age of the world, especially when 
made chiefly by land, and on foot. 

It is not improbable that the great age 
of Luke, and his inability to travel so well 
as the rest, was one of the principal reasons 
why he remained at Philippi. Paul and 
Silas were able to endure more hardship. 
They were not yet in the decline of life. 
As for Timothy, he had still all the activity 
of youth. Few people of thirty years of 
age, who have been brought up from their 
youth on the Bible principles, as Timothy 
had been, begin to be stiff with age. These 
marks of old age it is true sometimes ap- 
pear very early in the case of the luxurious, 
the intemperate, and the dissipated ; but 
Timothy w 7 as the contrary of all these. 

I cannot forbear to compare, once more, 
the persevering Timothy with Mark. We 
hear nothing about any reluctance on the 
part of the former to proceed, notwithstand- 
ing the dangers which were fast multiply- 






nig, 



CHARACTER OF MARK. 95 

And after all, there is reason to believe 
that Mark was a good man. It is possible 
that at the very time when Paul and Silas 
and Timothy were traversing Macedonia 
and Greece, he was assisting the aged Bar- 
nabas in establishing churches all over Cy- 
prus. We have already observed that Paul 
— like a christian — was afterwards quite 
reconciled to him. Even if he never did 
much as a missionary, either in foreign 
countries or at home, he might do immense 
good. There is always much good to be 
done at home as well as abroad. There is 
no little self denial required every day of 
our lives. Wherever we are, if we try to 
live in a way which we think the Saviour 
would approve, were he on earth, and ob- 
serving us, we shall find it requires a great 
deal of the same sort of courage that for- 
eign missionaries need. It is sometimes as 
hard to endure being laughed at, and ridi- 
culed by those who know us, and perhaps 
among them some of our best friends, as to 

11* 



96 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

bear the cruel persecutions of enemies, who 
are strangers to us. 

It is very hard, indeed, to do every thing 
exactly as we should do it, if we could see 
our Saviour near us, observing every thing 
we said or did, and taking an account of it 
for the great day of judgment. Not that 
w r e are never to smile, or do, or say, or eat 
any thing as if we enjoyed it. The Saviour 
never required people to be always silent or 
grave or gloomy, nor does he require it of 
his followers, now. While he expects us 
sometimes to weep w 7 ith those who weep, 
he is equally desirous of having us rejoice 
with those who rejoice, provided there is 
no actual guilt intermingled w 7 ith their 
mirth. There is reason to believe that 
Christ was usually cheerful, and that he ex- 
pects us to be. 

It would be very pleasant to know how 
Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke, as 
well as other eminent saints of God, used to 
behcive on the common occasions of life. 



THE APOSTLE'S EMPLOYMENTS. 97 

sometimes imagine, for the moment, that 
I see our little band of missionaries, travel- 
ling along in the distant countries of Eu- 
rope, conversing together, and perhaps 
making their remarks about the objects 
they pass — the houses, the fields, the gar- 
dens, the crops, the high and costly bridg- 
es over the streams, and the roads cut 
straight through the hills ; or about the 
birds, and beasts, and fishes, and plants, and 
fruits, and flowers; and occasionally ad~ 
verting to that wisdom, which is so obvi- 
ous in their construction and continuance, 
and thus directing their minds through na- 
ture up to nature's God. 

May we not sometimes call in the aid of 
fancy to help us consider how they ate, and 
drank, and slept, and dressed, and exer- 
cised, and conversed with other people ; 
and how they were employed in the inter- 
vals between their hours of preaching and 
travelling ; whether they studied much or 
little ; and a thousand other things °l 

But although one would like to know 

13 



98 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

these things, yet if it were absolutely ne- 
cessary for us tok now them, the Creator 
would probably have had them recorded. 
May we not, then, be contented, and make 
a good use of what information he has al- 
ready given 9 

The missionaries were quite successful 
in their labors at Berea. Many of the Jews 
believed them, and w r ere in the end of great 
service to the cause. It is thought that 
some of them were slaves to Grecian ladies 
of distinction in the city, and that they 
found means of instructing the latter in the 
way of truth. Be this as it may, it is quite 
certain that many of the " honorable wo- 
men" of the place were, in the end, con- 
verted, and the number who finallv came 
over to the christian faith, both of Jews 
and Greeks, of both sexes, was very consid- 
erable. 

But the gospel of God, preached with 
success to the honest Bereans, still made 
an excitement in the neighboring country ; 
as it ever will. Berea was not so far from 



PAUL LEAVES BEREA. 99 

Thessalonica but that the evil-minded lead- 
ers of the late riot in that place heard what 
was going on ; and they lost no time in 
coming there to try to prejudice the minds 
of the Bereans ; in w T hich they too fully 
succeeded. 

Paul's usefulness was now at an end 
here, and his friends proposed that he 
should go to Athens, which was about 250 
miles to the southward ; where he would 
be effectually out of the way. For this 
purpose they procured a passage for him 
on board a vessel. It is not improbable 
that the Thessalonians and Eereans thought 
they were sending him home to Antioch ; 
but instead of going to Syria, the vessel 
sailed for Athens, where shortly after they 
arrived in safety. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Athens. Its size. Streets. Public buildings. Mars 
Hill. Character of the people. Punishments. 
Commerce. —Silas and Timothy. Account of the 
Epicureans. Of the Stoics. Character of Zeno. 
Tke Epicureans and Stoics unite to oppose Chris- 
tianity. 

Athens, where Paul had now arrived, 
was founded about 1500 years before Christ, 
and was at first called Cecropia, from Ce- 
crops its founder. It was built on a rocky 
hill, in the midst of a large, fertile plain, a 
few miles from a small gulf of the Egean 
sea. As the number of inhabitants increas- 
ed, the hill became filled with houses, and 
the city extended over the plain, gradually, 
to a very great distance. The 'hill* or 



ATHENS. 101 

oldest part of the city, was called the Acro- 
polis ; that part of it which was below, on 
the plain, was sometimes called the Catapo- 
lis. Athens was 250 miles south of Berea, 
and 35 east of Corinth. 

The splendor of Athens had been some- 
what diminished in the time of St. Paul; 
but it was still a large and flourishing city. 
It was connected with three harbors by 
means of huge walls, which were broad 
enough for carriages to go on their top. 

The whole circumference of Athens, in- 
cluding not only the upper and lower town, 
but also the harbors, could not have been 
less than 22 or 23 miles. This space, how- 
ever, was never all of it thickly settled, 
though it was all considered as forming a 
part of the city. 

The streets of Athens were generally ir- 
regular, and the houses small and incom- 
modious. Several rocks and hillocks ren- 
dered the place very uneven. Some of 
these hillocks contained springs of water, 
but not in great abundance ; for Athens, to 

15* 



102 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

this day, has always been poorly supplied 
with this indispensable article. 

The most splendid building in the Acro- 
polis or upper city was the Parthenon, or 
temple of Minerva. This magnificent buil - 
ding was 217 feet long, 98 broad, and 65 
high. Some of its ruins are still to be 
seen. Here, also, stood a statue of Miner- 
va, formed of ivory, 46 feet high, and orna- 
mented with sold, to the value of more than 
half a million of dollars. 

But there were other interesting objects 
in Athens, among them were the temples 
of Theseus and Jupiter Olympus, the tem- 
ple of the Winds, two theatres, and the gal- 
lery of historical paintings. The traveller 
who visits Athens, at the present time, may 
see the remains of nearly all these buil- 
dings. 

There was one more object of great in- 
terest. This was Mars-Hill ; an eminence 
near the middle of the city, on which the 
famous court of the Areopagus used to as- 
semble. This court consisted of the su- 




MARS HILL. 103 



preme judges of Athens. No person could 
be elected a judge in this court, till he had 
sustained the office of archon or chief mag- 
istrate of the city. The business of this 
court was to take notice of murders, impi- 
eties, and immoralities, and to punish ac- 
cording to their judgment. Indeed they 
punished all kinds of vice, not excepting 
idleness. But they were particularly at- 
tentive to what they called impiety or blas- 
phemy against their gods. It was on 
this account that Paul was brought before 
them, as we shall see hereafter. 

Mars-Hill is now said to be a Turkish 
burying ground,* and covered with monu- 
ments. But on the very top of the hill, 
you find the spot where the Areopagus held 
its sittings ; and among other things may 
be seen steps hewn in the rock, w r here the 
judges used to sit : — opposite to these are 
the stations of the accuser and the accused. 



* The population of Athens in 1812 was about 12,000 ; 
of whom one fourth were Turks ; but the late war has 
nearly rendered the city a heap of ruins. 

13* 



104 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

The Pnyx, where the people assembled, is 
very nearly in its primitive state. You may 
see the place from which the orators spoke, 
hewn in the rock ; and at the ends, the 
seats of the scribes and of those officers 
whose business, like that of our sheriffs, 
constables, &c. was to preserve order. 
Even the niches where the people deposit- 
ed their petitions to the court, are still vis- 
ible. 

The people of Athens were patriotic, 
and in some respects, virtuous : but they 
had also many vices. Their manners were 
loose and impure, and they worshipped 
idols. It is even said that there were more 
idols within the limits of the city of Athens 
than in all the rest of Greece. They had 
erected altars — in St. Paul's time — to all 
the known gods, and one to the gods that 
were unknown. But I shall say more 
about this, hereafter. 

In dress and domestic arrangements, the 
people of Athens were very plain and sim- 
ple ; though when they thought the honor 




ATHENAN MANNERS. 105 



of the state required it, they were as extrav- 
agant as any other people. But so plain 
were they in private life, that Xenophon 
says that a slave could not be known from 
his wealthy master, by his dress. The 
richest citizens and the most renowned of 
their generals were not ashamed to go, 
themselves, to market. 

As to dress, though the men were only 
required to study decency, the women were 
expected to dress more elegantly. The 
latter, whenever they went out, wore a veil 
over their heads, as was the custom in the 
East. They painted their eye-brows with 
black, and applied white lead to their fa- 
ces, with deep tints of red. Their hair, 
which they crowned with flowers, was 
sprinkled over with a yellow colored pow- 
der. 

The women were not allowed to go into 
company with their husbands, but were usu- 
ally kept shut up in their apartments. 
They were, indeed, permitted to go out 
during the day time, on certain occasions ; 



106 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

but never in the night, unless they were in 
a carriage, and were lighted by a flambeau. 
At one period, they w r ere not allowed to 
appear at the windows. 

But notwithstanding the severity of these 
laws, the females, especially of the lower 
classes, did venture abroad, at the public 
festivals, and at the ceremonies of the tem- 
ple. Generally, however, if they w r ent 
abroad, they had either female slaves or 
eunuchs to attend them. 

The Athenians were naturally abstemi- 
ous, in regard to food ; living chiefly on 
salt meat and vegetables. But they were 
less temperate in the use of wine, especial- 
ly on all public occasions. Plutarch rep- 
resents the Athenian matrons as addicted 
to drunkenness and the grossest sensuality ; 
also that they were turbulent and quarrel- 
some at home, and that peace was seldom 
found in their habitations. 

The people of the city were of three 
classes ; freemen, or citizens, sojourners, 
and slaves. The latter class was very nu- 



PUNISHMENTS AT ATHENS. 107 

merous. Whether male or female, they 
were not allowed to wear long hair; or to 
worship certain of the deities. They were 
sometimes marked on the forehead, or on 
other parts of the body, as an indication of 
disgrace. They were kept under rigid 
obedience and punished with great sever- 
ity. Still they had the right of purchasing 
their freedom, and some of them were ad- 
vanced to the dignity of citizens. 

The following is a list of the Athenian 
punishments. 1. Infamy or disgrace. 

2. Casting condemned persons into a pit. 

3. Hanging or strangling. 4. Fetters or 
imprisonment. 5. Servitude or slavery. 
6 Fines. 7. Throwing the criminal head- 
long from a precipice. 8. Wearing a col- 
lar, made of wood. 9. Stoning to death 
(this was for adultery.) 10. Decapitation 
or beheading. 11. Crucifying. 12. En- 
graving the crimes of an offender on a pil- 
lar. 13. Branding with a hot iron, (a pun- 
ishment of slaves.) 14. Beating to death 
with clubs. 15. Stretching upon the rack, 

15 




108 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

by means of cords. 16. Poisoning in vari- 
ous ways ; often by hemlock. 17. Binding 
the criminal to a log of wood. IS. Drown- 
ing in the sea. 19. Burning. 

The Athenians had considerable trade, 
though they were not allowed by the laws 
to carry very many articles of produce into 
other countries. Their soil furnished cy- 
press, palm, and fir, in great abundance, for 
timber; yet they were not permitted to ex- 
port it. Oil, and silver from their mines, 
constituted their principal exportations. 
But they imported from the country about 
the Black sea, slaves, salt, honey, wax, wool, 
and leather; from Byzantium (Constantin- 
ople) Thrace and Macedonia, salt-fish and 
wood ; from Phrygia and Asia Minor, car- 
pets, coverlids, and fire- wood; and from 
the islands of the Mediterranean, wines and 
slaves. Books were also an article of con- 
siderable trade among them. 

Such were the people of Athens and its 
vicinity, and such, very briefly, their char- 
acter, when, in the year of our Lord 56 



PAUL ON MARS HILL. JQ9 

Paul landed among them. Silas and Tim- 
othy, for reasons which are not distinctly 
given, remained behind at Berea. It does 
not appear to have been the apostle's inten- 
tion to make any considerable stay at Ath- 
ens ; for he had no sooner arrived and ta- 
ken lodgings than he sent for Silas and 
Timothy to meet him at Athens as soon as 
possible ; in the mea 1 while waiting pa- 
tiently for their arrival, but without preach- 
ing in the city, so far as we can learn, for 
several days. Nor is there indeed any sat- 
isfactory evidence that during his visit there 
at this time, he preached at all, properly 
speaking. What he said on Mars-Hill 
could hardly be called preaching. 

The reasons which influenced Paul in 
forming a determination, on his first arri- 
val in Athens, not to preach there, perhaps 
were, that he had little hope of effecting 
much in a place where the religion of the 
people was so well fortified by schools of 
learning, as Athens then was. For the 
Athenians were— in their own way— the most 

14 



110 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION 

enlightened people in the world ; and had 
some of the best schools. It is said that at 
the time we are speaking of, and for a long 
time previous, Athens had been regarded 
as the seat of science, philosophy, and the 
arts, and the fountain from whence civility, 
learning, religion, and the laws flowed to 
other nations; — and had deservedly obtain- 
ed the name of the University of the Roman 
Empire. People from every part of the 
known world resorted thither to acquire 
knowledge ; — and to have spent some time 
in Athens was considered as imparting the 
highest polish to a liberal course of educa- 
tion. 

The sects of philosophers at Athens were 
very numerous, but the most distinguished 
among them, and those with whom the 
apostle appears during his stay to have had 
the most to do, were the Epicureans and 
the Stoics. It w 7 ill be necessary in this 
place, to give a concise account of these 
two sects. 

The Epicureans were the disciples or 



THE EPICUREANS. 



Ill 



followers of Epicurus, who lived about 350 
years before. They believed there were 
gods, somewhere in the universe, but they 
did not suppose they took much notice of 
what was going on in this world, or exer- 
cised any government over it. They did 
not believe in the existence of angels or 
spirits, or in the immortality of the human 
soul. They thought when a person died, 
as we call it, there was an end of him, in 
soul and body. This shows why they w r ere 
so ready to ridicule Paul when he began to 
talk about the resurrection of the dead. 

Epicurus himself, though he adopted a 
belief so strange, and erroneous, was quite 
a moral man. He believed that the great 
business of mankind was to procure pleas- 
ure ; but it must be rational pleasure. He 
did not think that those persons enjoyed 
the most pleasure who indulged their appe- 
tites, like the beasts, without any restraint; 
— but that they were the happiest who 
kept all their passions in subjection, and 
preserved the mind in a cheerful tranquil 



112 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

frame. In order to effect this, he held that 
great temperance in eating and drinking 
was indispensably necessary ; and it is even 
said that with a view to secure the greatest 
amount of pleasure from eating and drink- 
ing, he used sometimes to confine himself 
to bread and water ; and in moderate quan- 
tity. 

Now there can be no doubt that if peo- 
ple would live more simply, they would en- 
joy far more pleasure in the indulgence of 
their animal appetites than they now do; 
eating, as is fashionable, so many sorts of 
food (and some of them hurtful) at once. 
None but those who have confined them- 
selves, for a while to bread and water, or 
something equally plain and simple, know 
what it is to have a pure and perfect and 
keen relish for food. Their taste is be- 
numbed by many strange mixtures. — I say, 
therefore, that the extreme of using bread 
and water alone is oroductive of far more 
pleasure than our modern fashionable ex- 
treme of using mixtures. Still it is hot 



THE EPICUREANS. 113 

certain but a middle course would be 
equally productive of pleasure, and more 
healthful than either. This would be to 
have various sorts of food at different meals, 
but never more than one thing at any sin- 
gle meal. 

But to return to tho Epicureans. The 
'disciples of this amiable philosopher, not 
having his good judgment and correct mor- 
al habits to guide them, ran into the gross- 
est sensuality ; supposing this was the way 
to secure the greatest amount of pleasure 
or happiness. Hence the majority of the 
adherents to the sect plunged themselves 
in all manner of wickedness, and their lives 
became as wretched as their philosophy.* 



*This fact oucrht to lead us to some valuable reflec- 
tion;. The character of Epicurus was not formed by 
h:s philosophy. All his habits, or at least the most of 
them, were fixed, and he had reached an aore at which 
human opinion-? and habits seldom alter much, before 
he embraced his peculiar views in philosophy. Those 
therefore who admire his unblameable and regular life 
should remember that it was tar from being the effect 
of his principles ; for it is not known that tho:e princi- 
ples produced any change in him. Had he been a vic- 
ious man, and had he become reformed after adopting 

14* 



114 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

The Stoics were the followers of Zeno, 
who lived about 300 years before Christ. 
He taught what is commonly called fatal- 
ism. He believed there were gods, but 
that they and the world of mankind, over 
whom they presided, were all bound down 
to certain rules which even the gods them- 
selves could not alter. He was an excel- 



his philosophy, the case would be different, in short, 
when the adoption of new principles does not appear to 
alter a man's character, either for the better or the 
worse, we have no right to pronounce on the tendency 
of those principles, till they have been more extensive- 
ly applied. But when a generation or two have been 
educated under the influence of certain opinions and 
principles, we can form a far better idea of their legiti- 
mate tendency. 

So when we look at the conduct, either of the found- 
ers of new sects, or of their first disciples, and perhaps 
see them to be amiable and excellent men, we have no 
right to conclude that this has any thing to do with 
their particular doctrines. Perhaps their characters 
were formed under the influence of other opinions, and 
under the guidance of another sect, of even greater ex- 
cellence and soundness in the faith than that which 
they have recently embraced. But if so — and if the 
new doctrines they have embraced, do really tend 
" downward," like those of Epicurus, although they 
may not have a deteriorating effect on their first adult 
disciples, we shall see it in the next generation ; and 
the more plainly, the farther the disciples of the new 
sect are removed by the lapse of tinie, from their 
founder. 




HOUSE OF JASON. 115 

lent man in point of moral character, though 
very austere. He taught that the passions 
should be extinguished, and that we ought 
to receive both pleasure and pain with 
nearly the same feelings ; and that it was 
the great business of life to keep ourselves 
in an equable and quiet state. 

But the followers of Zeno too, perverted 
his philosophy. They taught a greater de- 
gree of austerity and stiffness of manners 
than their master. Besides, they were ex- 
travagantly proud and obstinate. In their 
estimation, — and according to their notions 
of virtue — a true Stoic was, in many instan- 
ces, superior even to their gods. 

The founders of both these sects reach- 
ed an advanced age. Epicurus died at the 
age of 72 ; and Zeno at 98. The latter 
had taught his doctrines publicly at Athens 
for about half a century. 

Zeno may be called a self-educated man. 
He was born in the island of Cyprus, and 
the first part of his life was spent in com 
mercial pursuits. As he was returning on 

16 



H6 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

a certain occasion from Phenicia, a storm 
drove his ship on the coast not far from 
Athens. In order to drive away his mel- 
ancholy, after he had landed, he went into 
a bookseller's shop, took up a book, and 
began to read. It happened to be a vol- 
ume written by Xenophon. The merchant 
was so captivated by the writings of the 
philosopher, that he immediately renounced 
the pursuits of a busy life, and applied him- 
self to the study of philosophy. He soon 
became a distinguished scholar and emi- 
nent philosopher ; and it was not long be- 
fore he opened an academy at Athens, and 
became a public teacher. Of his success, 
you have already been informed. 

Although the two sects — the Epicureans 
and the Stoics — were much opposed to 
each other, they were united in one thing, 
viz. in opposing the Christian relig'on. 
But this will appear more fully in the next 
chapter. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Idolatry at Athens. Paul encounters the philosophers.. 
Their charges against him. The court of Areopa- 
gus. Paul brought before it. His speech. Diffi- 
culties about the doctrine of the resurrection. The 
subject considered. Paul's explanation, in a letter. 
Few converts at Athens. Paul's departure. 

While Taul was waiting at Athens for 
the arrival of Silas and Timothy from Be- 
rea, he had leisure -to walk about and view 
the city ; but how was he pained to see, 
every where, the plainest evidences that 
the city was almost " wholly given to idol- 
atry." There was no city in the world at 
that time which contained so many idols^ 
and in which there was so much idol 
worship. 



US SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

The sight roused him; and though he 
appears to have formed the resolution to be 
silent in this city of philosophy, he chang- 
ed his purpose, and began a war with error. 
Not by openly and directly attacking the 
opinions of these idolaters to their faces ; 
but by commencing the attack as was cus- 
tomary with him in the Jewish synagogue. 

Besides the Jews, there appears to have 
been devout Greeks in the city. These he 
used to meet occasionally in his walks ; and 
he opened a discussion with them. But 
though he commenced the preaching of the 
gospel at Athens in this indirect manner, 
it could not long be concealed that such a 
man as Paul was in the city. The Atheni- 
ans were especially famous for crowding 
round public places to catch the passing 
news.* The market place, in particular, 



* The Athenians were not wholly unlike the rest of 
the world in this respect. There are not a few people 
among us, and probably in every country, whose whole 
happiness seems to consist in hearing, seeing, tasting, 
or telling some thing new. The day that passes with- 
out some change in one or more of these respects, is z. 
day of misery to them. 



PAUL RIDICULED. Hg 

is said to have been a favorite place of re- 
sort, and there we are expressly told that 
Paul met certain persons and discussed his 
favorite subjects daily. 

It was not long before he encountered 
some of the Epicurean and Stoical philoso- 
phers. They did not hesitate to ridicule 
both him and his doctrine. Some of them 
called him a babbler, or as it is said the 
word might have been rendered by the 
translators, a retailer of scraps — that is, 
they pretended he had only collected a few 
fragments of other men's religious or philo- 
sophical systems— which he was endeavor- 
ing to palm off upon the world for some- 



Novv this insatiable curiosity, and eager desire for new 
things, is the abuse of a good principle. The Creator 
has kindly given the desire to see and hear and taste 
what we had not seen, heard or tasted before. He has 
done it, as a means of gaining knowledge. What pro- 
gress should we make in wisdom, what improvement in 
virtue, were we perfectly contented with the past and 
present? Our business is to keep the desire for new ob- 
jects under proper regulation. Let it excite us where 
it should do so ; but where it would injure us rather than 
promote our happiness, let it be repiessed. 

18* 






120 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 



thing new, or a new system. Others were 
more bold, and did not hesitate to charge 
him with encouraging the worship of 
" strange gods," as they called them ; — 
gods different from those which the Atheni- 
ans worshipped. The strange god to whom 
they referred was Jesus, the crucified Sa- 
viour. For Paul in his public preaching 
always made so much of the Saviour ; set- 
ting him forth to be " God, manifest in the 
flesh," " equal to the Father" of the Uni- 
verse, &c. that it is not much to be won- 
dered at, that they should consider him as 
inculcating the idea of a new god. 

There was however another thing taught 
by Paul which perplexed them quite as 
much as what he said about the Saviour. 
This was the resurrection of the dead. We 
have already seen that the Epicureans de- 
nied all such things as angels and spirits, 
and believed that at death man fell into an 
eternal sleep. It was not surprising, then, 
that Paul should be taken to Mars Hill as 



PAUL ON TRIAL. J21 

we find he was, to give an account of him- 
self and his belief before the famous court 
of Areopagus. 

And what, think you, were the feelings of 
Paul as he was led along to be introduced 
to this celebrated court ; — to state his be- 
lief and defend his opinions before the most 
enlightened judges (for such the nine arch- 
ons or judges of this court most undoubted- 
ly were) of the most enlightened city in the 
known world °l 

We are not to understand that St. Paul 
was brought before this court, exactly in 
the condition of a criminal. It is true, that 
had he proved unable to defend himself, or 
had he attacked, with violence, their pecu- 
liar and favorite doctrines, his trial as a 
criminal might have followed. But, on the 
contrary, there is no doubt that they were 
ready, if he could substantiate the claims 
of the new god or gods which it was said 
he held forth, to admit them, as a valuable 
addition to their own list of deities. For 
though they believed in a great number of 

16* 



122 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

deities already, they would have been wil- 
ling, in all probability, to have added one 
or two more to the number. 

Are we to suppose that Paul trembled 
when he found himself placed in the middle 
of a numerous and learned assembly 9 He 
was modest, but not timid ; he was not dis- 
posed to push himself into a public place like 
this. Yet when duty seemed to call him 
there, it is probable he dismissed all fears. 
He had, it is true, one advantage which 
most of the apostles and missionaries of 
early times had not. He had received an 
education almost as liberal as Athens could 
have afforded ; so that he was able to form 
a pretty just estimate of the character of 
his audience, and to address himself to them 
in the most acceptable manner. 

There is a way of telling people the truth, 
even the whole truth, although it should be 
of the most offensive kind, so as to give 
very little offence. This art Paul posses- 
sed in a most remarkable degree, as we 
shall see bv what follows. 




PAULS PREACHING. 12 



e% 



Having come to the place assigned him, 
those who brought him there requested him 
to go into a particular account of his new 
and strange doctrines, as they called them. 
Thousands, no doubt, if the place could ac- 
commodate so many, were on tiptoe to be 
gratified with something new ; while the 
judges, seeing the speaker to be an inferi- 
or looking man, and probably thinking him 
to be very ignorant, might naturally enough 
expect they should now have a little sport. 
But they little suspected what a great mind 
they had before them. 

Paul began his address in a most ingeni- 
ous manner. He did not disgust them by 
at once saying they were wrong through- 
out ; that nothing in their worship was 
right, &c. But taking the office of a re- 
former, though in as modest a way as he 
could, he proposed to set them right in cer- 
tain points where they appeared to him ig- 
norant. He admitted them to be worship- 
pers of invisible powers, but only insisted 
that they did not fully understand the na« 



124 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

ure of the powers whose interference and 
assistance they were accustomed to seek. 

A sort of paraphrase of this discourse 
might here be given ; but the task is so 
difficult that it seems to me better to put it 
down in precisely the same language in 
which Luke the writer of the Acts gives it. 
No doubt this is but a mere abstract — the 
substance, rather than all the words which 
w r ere used — and there is almost as little 
doubt that Paul was broken off before he 
had finished his remarks, Still as a mere 
abstract of only the introduction to a dis- 
course, it is almost unrivalled. — Standing 
up, where he could be seen by the whole 
multitude, he spoke as follows. 

" Men of Athens! I perceive that in all 
things ye are too superstitious.* 

"For as I passed by, and beheld your 
devotions, I found an altar with this in- 
scription ; TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. 



* The word here translated superstitious, means ^ too 
reverential of too many gods." 



PAUL'S PREACHING. 125 

Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, 
him declare 1 unto you. 

" God that made the world, and all 
things therein, seeing that he is Lord of 
heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples 
made with hands, neither is worshipped by 
men's hands, as though he needed any 
thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and 
breath, and all things; and hath made of 
one blood all nations of men, for to dwell 
on all the face of the earth; and hath de- 
termined the times before appointed, and 
the bounds of their habitation, that they 
should seek the Lord, if haply they might 
feel after him and find him, though he be 
not far from every one of us : for in him we 
live, and move, and have our being. As 
certain also of your own poets have said ; 
For we are also his offspring.* 



* These were the words of Aratus, an Athenian poet, 
who lived about 300 years before this. The Archons, 
as well as the gaping thousands around, began to find, 
by this time, that St. Paul was not the ignoramus they 
had taken him to be ; especially as he could quote the 
language of their own poets. 

IS 



12(3 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

" Forasmuch, then, as we are the off- 
spring of God, we ought not to think that 
the Godhead is like unto gold or silver, or 
stone, graven by art and man's device. 

" And the times of this ignorance God 
winked at, but now commandeth all men, 
every where, to repent, because he hath 
appointed a day in the which he will judge 
the world in righteousness, by that man 
w T hom he hath ordained, whereof he hath 
given full assurance unto all men, in that 
he hath raised him from the dead." 

This doctrine of rising again from the 
dead, was new to the iVthenians. It is true 
that Socrates, who lived a little while be- 
fore, and a few others, had conjectured that 
mankind might live again ; but it could 
hardly be said that even Socrates believed 
it. And as to the great mass of the peo- 
ple, the majority, probably, never thought 
much about it. It was only the learned — - 
some few hundreds, who belonged to the 
schools, that had thought enough about it 
to deny it. 



THE RESURRECTION. ]27 

As for those who had thought on the sub- 
ject — for there were certainly some who 
had — it is doubtful whether one individual 
had ever thought or heard of the rising of 
the body. Even the Jews seem to have 
been in the dark, or at least, in the twilight. 
It was reserved for the Savior to bring life 
and immortality to light, and especially the 
immortality of the body. 

And to us, even now, 1800 years after 
the body of the Saviour rose, when the 
doctrine of the resurrection of the bodies 
of all mankind has been so long proclaim- 
ed in all quarters of the world, it is an ex- 
ceedingly hard doctrine for many to believe. 
Why, then, should it have appeared strange 
to the Athenians % " But they ought not to 
have mocked at it, as we are told they did ;" 
you will say. True, very true. But sure- 
ly no one will say it is any thing very re- 
markable that the Greeks should be puzzled 
with it ; when it is enough to perplex the 
wisest heads, at this day. 

Nor are we to wonder that the Corinthi- 

17 



128 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

ans, among whom Paul preached soon after 
he left Athens, found it difficult to under- 
stand the new doctrine. It is getting in 
advance of our story, to speak of the Corin- 
thians before giving an account of Paul's 
going there ; but since I have alluded to 
the subject allow me to go a little farther. 
You will see my reasons presently. A let- 
ter which Paul wrote to these people of 
Corinth, sometime after he left them, con- 
tains the clearest account of this difficult 
doctrine, which is to be found any where 
in the New Testament. It is near the end 
of his first letter or Epistle — in the fifteenth 
chapter. It will be well for you to turn to 
it, and lay the book open before you as you 
go on with my explanation of it. 

After he had labored for some time to 
prove that Christ had risen from the dead, 
he suddenly adverts to the objections which 
were probably then uppermost in every 
one's mind, as they are now : " How are 
the dead raised up, and with what body do 
they come ?" 







THE RESURRECTION. 12£i 

Hiy, says he, when you sow or plant, 
you do not put the same body into the 
ground which afterwards comes up and- 
shows itself. You sow merely the kernel 
of the grain ; wheat, for example. Well, 
from this small body God causes another 
body to spring up ; not like the kernel of 
the wheat which was sown, to be sure ; but 
yet having a most wonderful relation to it. 
You never saw a mustard stalk grow from a 
kernel of wheat, nor a corn stalk from a 
mustard seed. Every body knows, when a 
wheat stalk is growing, that there must 
have been a kernel of wheat in the ground 
for it to grow from ; and that it could not 
have come from a mustard seed, or an 
acorn. 

In pursuing this most interesting course 
of reasoning the apostle comes at length to 
make the following remarks; " so also is 
the resurrection of the dead. It (the body) 
is sown in corruption ; it is raised in incor- 
ruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is rais- 
ed in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is 



130 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

raised in power ; it is sown a natural body ; 
it is raised a spiritual body. There is a 
natural body, and there is a spiritual 
body." 

It seems to me that no reasoning of un- 
inspired men can make the subject of the 
resurrection of the body clearer than this 
inspired apostle has ~m?de it, in his letter. 
Yet there are those who still find difficul- 
ties? How can it, indeed, be otherwise, 
so long as we dwell on this earth 9 

And after all it may be well to try to help 
these people a little, who find so many dif- 
ficulties. The body, they tell us, returns 
to dust, and sometimes that dust is scatter- 
ed up and down the earth, and some of it 
swept by the floods to the bottom of the 
great deep. Can this be collected at the 
great day ? — But why not ? Ts it beyond the 
power of him who gave life, and who caus- 
es the particles of matter that form our 
bodies, to arrange themselves as they do, 
to re-arrange the same particles more sud- 
denly *? How much more power does it re- 



THE RESURRECTION. 131 

quire to frame laws and keep them in force, 
by which a body is made up in 20 years, 
than it does to make up such a body instan- 
taneously? 

This, however, is not the greatest diffi- 
culty which people bring. Those who 
have studied chemistry tell us that the bod- 
ies of living animals are decomposed after 
death, and the same particles of matter 
which once formed them, often go into new 
bodies ; and that it follows from hence that 
a particle of matter at the resurrection, may 
have formed a part of several different bod- 
ies. And now, say they, to which resurrec- 
tion body shall it belong ? 

If we tell them that much which goes in- 
to the human body never becomes a solid 
part of it, but passes out of it in the form 
of perspiration, or otherwise, they immedi- 
ately say ; " But you know that there are, 
in some parts of the world, cannibals, who 
live principally on human flesh ; and it 
seems impossible but that some of those 
particles, at least, should become parts of 

IT* 



132 SECOND FOREIGN" MISSION. 

a second body." To many minds, the dif- 
ficulty is entirely removed by the reasoning 
of St. Paul. He represents the resurrec- 
tion body as a spiritual body, and says that 
a natural body is one thing, and a spiritual 
body is another. And does he not mean 
by the comparison of the new or resurrec- 
tion body to the new stalk of wheat, which 
every body sees to be wheat, although it is 
not like the kernel which was put in the 
ground ; — does he not mean, I say, by ma- 
king this comparison, to lead us to see that 
the body which shall be given us at the 
resurrection, though not at all like the old 
body, may be called the same, just as wheat 
is. still wheat although the kernel has per- 
ished ? And as the new wheat stalk, though 
it may not contain a single particle of mat- 
ter which belonged to the old kernel from 
which it sprung, is yet properly wheat, and 
seen and known by every body to be such ; 
may we not conclude from Paul's reasoning 
that the resurrection body, though it should 
not contain a single particle of matter 






THE RESURECT10N. 133 

which the old body possessed here, may 
nevertheless be properly called the same 
body, and may, by the power, wisdom, and 
goodness of God, be so formed as to be 
known, and at once recognized, in the fu- 
ture world ? 

Perhaps this opinion is strengthened, — 
at least in the estimation of some, — bv the 
supposed fact that the bodies which we 
possess, in this world, are always changing ; 
that such is the rapidity of this change, 
especially while we are young, and the cir- 
culation active, that a person of twenty 
years of age very probably has not a single 
particle of matter within him — even of the 
most solid bone — which belonged to him 
when ten years old, and the person of forty, 
i none which belonged to him at twenty. 
But if this be so, and the question is asked ; 
Which of the various bodies shall we have 
at the resurrection, what shall we say % If 
the person is an old man, does he have the 
body he died with, or that of forty ; or that 
of twenty, or ten °l 

19 




134 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

If the foregoing opinions — such as it 
seems to me Paul must have held — are true, 
the answer to the latter queries is perfectly 
easy. It is neither. It is a spiritual body 
which we have at the resurrection ; — a body 
so much resembling the old one that it is 
correct to call it the same ; and yet it is no 
more the same than the new wheat stalk 
is the same wheat with the old kernel. 

Should it still be asked whether the 
spiritual body will appear most like the 
youthful or the aged earthly body, I can 
only say that it appears to me quite proba- 
ble, for various reasons, that it will put on 
the appearance of eternal youth. 

Did you ever consider, youthful readers, 
that you are to rise, in the resurrection, 
with spiritual bodies which, if deformed 
and rendered ugly by sin, — will be your 
deformed companions through ages which 
shall never end 9 

But we must return from this long digres- 
sion. It was just now said, that some of 
the multitude at Mars Hill mocked the holy 



SUCCESS AT ATHENS. 135 

apostle as soon as they heard of the resur- 
rection of the body. Others, however, 
either from compliment or for some other 
reason, ssemed more favorably disposed, 
and said they should like to hear him 
again on the same subject. But we do not 
learn that they ever had another oppor- 
tunity. 

One of the judges of the court, however, 
Dionysius, became a believer in the truths 
of the gospel, as well as a few persons of 
less distinction ; and among them one 
female whose name was Damaris. His 
success at Athens, was, however, inconsid- 
erable. 

There are many reasons for this. The 
people of Athens, were, as we have already 
seen, an educated people ; and an educat- 
ed people are not easily changed. No 
matter how wrong their education may be, 
and how false may be their religious notions 
which are instilled into their minds ; if they 
are impressed early, and with great pains, 
they are apt to remain. This should teach 



136 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION 

an important lesson to christians. They 
should educate their children, from the 
earliest years, to their peculiar views, as 
the most effectual security against what 
they deem error. This is objected to by 
skeptics, because, say they, we thus preju- 
dice their minds in favor of particular 
views, whereas we should be left wholly 
free to judge for ourselves. But this free- 
dom, of which the skeptic speaks, is im- 
possible. He cannot secure it to his own 
children. They are prejudiced against all 
sects, as much as the children of christians 
are in favor of particular ones. 

Paul appears to have left Athens soon 
after he was dismissed from the court of 
Areopagus. What became of his folio vers 
there, is uncertain. There appears to be 
no evidence that the little flock he col- 
lected there ever formed themselves into 
a church. And yet there is some reason 
to hope that they did ; for Paul, during his 
subsequent long stay at Corinth, would be 
apt to visit Athens, more or less frequently. 






PAUL LEAVES ATHENS. 137 

As Paul had sent for Silas and Timothy, 
and had waited some time for them at 
Athens, it is not a little surprising that he 
went away before they arrived. For he 
was honorably acquitted at Mars Hill; and 
surely he had no fear of mobs, here, as at 
some other places. But doubtless he had 
his reasons. He was not the man to act 
capriciously. He made no movements — 
hardly so much as to lift a finger — without 
being able to give the reason why, if asked 
by any body that had a right to know. 
Above all, he remembered that whether 
called to give an account of himself before 
men or not, the time must arrive, sooner 
or later, when he should be obliged to 
render an account of all his thoughts, 
words, and actions, before a greater court 
than that at Mars Hill. 

21* 




CHAPTER X. 

Paul arrives at Corinth. Description of the city. — 
Character of the inhabitants. Paul's meeting with 
two old friends. Lodges with them. Labors at his 
trade. Preaches in the synao-oo-ue. Arrival of Silas 
and Timothy. Paul turns to the Gentiles. His suc- 
cess. Long abode at Corinth. What became of 
Silas and Timothy. His letters to the Thessolonians. 
Is persecuted, but honorably acquitted. Reflections. 

From Athens, St. Paul went to Corinth. 
This city was about thirty-five miles west- 
ward of Athens, on a narrow belt of land 
between the gulf of Corinth on the north- 
west, and the Saronic Gulf on the south 
east. The distance across the isthmus is 
not more than six miles. The situation of 
this city, is naturally one of the most de- 
lightful in the w r orld, and it had once been 
quite populous; but the Roman consul 



CORINTH. 139 

Mummius, destroyed it by fire only about 
two hundred years before, and though re- 
built it had never recovered its former 
splendor. 

Corinth was a place of considerable 
trade, but it did not lie exactly on the 
shore of either gulf, and yet was connected 
with both, by means of ports, like Lima, in 
South x\merica, the port of which is Callao. 
The ports of Corinth were, Lecheum, situat- 
ed on the bay of Corinth, and Cenchrea, 
on the Egean sea, to the south east. The 
distance from Corinth to Cenchrea was 
about eight miles, and the two places were 
connected by a double wall. 

We have already seen that Corinth was 
a place of considerable trade. Her mer- 
chant ships, at one period, covered the sea, 
and she had a navy to protect them. Her 
great naval power procured her respect, 
and all nations came to her for trade. 
Paper and sail cloth came from Egypt, 
ivory from Lybia, leather from Cyrene, 
incense from Syria, dates from Phenicia. 

19* 



140 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

carpets from Carthage, corn and cheese 
from Syracuse, pears and apples from 
Euboea, and slaves from Phrygia and Thes- 
saly. The games in this vicinity also drew 
to Corinth, every year, large numbers of 
foreigners. 

Corinth was also a place of extensive 
manufactures. . Her brass and earthen ware, 
were held in the highest estimation. The 
manufacture of coverlids for beds was con- 
siderable. There were a ] so excellent 
workmen in painting and statuary. And 
though the neighborhood of Corinth fur- 
nished no mines, yet the workmen in the 
city contrived or rather invented a mixture 
of gold, silver, and copper, which was ex- 
ceedingly brilliant, and not liable to rust, 
from which they manufactured great num- 
bers of cuirasses, helmets, small figures, 
cups, and vessels. Some of them, as well 
as much of their earthen ware, were richly 
and beautifully ornamented. 

The Corinthians were more devote, to 
trade than the Athenians; and scarcely 



THE. CORINTHIANS. 141 

i less assiduous in cultivating the arts and 

i sciences. Though they were distinguished 

• for their love of gain and pleasure, they 
i were, at St. Paul's arrival, fond of learning. 
i The women were beautiful, but both sexes 

were extremelv vicious, and addicted to 

idol worship and the most impure practices. 

Such was Corinth, and such in a greater 

! or less decree was the character of its in- 

■ habitants, when St. Paul first entered the 

I city as a missionary, and commenced there 

i labors which were continued so long, and 

crowned with such abundant success. 

It may not be amiss to contrast Corinth 

: as it was four or five years ago, with Cor- 

• inth as it was in the days of St. Paul and 
, earlier. And in so doing, I shall make a 

• very liberal use of the remarks of Rev. 
, ilufus Anderson, in his " Observations upon 
I the Peloponessus and Greek Islands," made 
' in 1829, while travelling in that country. 

Mr. A. is one of the Secretaries of the 
i American Board of Commissioners for For- 
ign Missions. 



142 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

Before the late revolution in Greece, 
Corinth, captured, plundered, and devastat- 
ed, as it had been, successively, by the 
Romans, Goths, Huns, and Turks, was 
reduced to about one thousand Greek and 
three hundred Turkish houses. During 
the revolution it was pillaged and wasted 
by every party, and reduced to one wide 
heap of desolation. An extensive palace, 
with its fountains, baths, and gardens, was 
levelled to the ground. The Kebla, or 
sacred side of one of its three mosques, 
filled with bullet holes, was all that re- 
mained of them. Of six churches, the 
walls of one, only, were entire ; and not 
one private dwelling escaped destruction. 

"About thirty minutes (perhaps two 
miles) northeasterly from the city are the 
remains of an ancient amphitheatre. — 
Round the circumference, in caves worn 
beneath the rock, live about a dozen fami- 
lies, victims of penury and war, but now 
pensioners on American charity. One 
hundred and fifty or two hundred families 



PAUL AT ATHENS. 143 

seek a shelter amid the ruins of the city." 
The citadel of Athens is called the Ac- 
rocorinthus. Both this and the city be- 
neath are abundantly supplied with water. 
For this, and other reasons, many travellers 
think Corinth will be likely to rise again, — 
perhaps to resume its ancient splendor. 
Neither Athens nor Argos abound in water. 
! Fifteen villages were to be counted on 
the plain of Corinth, all in a ruinous con- 
dition. Amid the luxuriant pastures were 
seen, hercand there, flocks of sheep, and 
droves of horses ; but no vineyards. Not 
far from Corinth may be seen, however, a 
grove of fifty thousand olive trees. 

The number of inhabitants in Corinth, 
1 in 1822, was about thirteen hundred. Its 
present population is not known. 

Paul, on his arrival at Corinth, did not 
find himself, as at Athens, wholly among 
strangers. Not only was there a larger 
number of settled residents there who were 
Jews, but he also found two persons there 
who profane history says were his old 

21 



144 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

friends. These were Aquila and his wife 
Priscilla, who were natives of Pontus in 
Asia Minor ; but they had for some time 
before been living in Italy. It appears 
just before Paul met them at Corinth, the 
emperor of Rome, Claudius Caesar, had 
passed a decree to forbid any Jews resid- 
ing in Italy, and Aquila and Priscilla being 
thus driven away, carne and settled at 
Corinth. 

It is said, moreover, that this man and 
his wife were early disciples of Paul, which, 
if a fact, must have greatly increased their 
joy at this unexpected meeting. Paul took 
up his lodgings with them, and as their 
business was tent-making, he engaged with 
them for a time, and worked, on week 
days, at the same employment. 

But instead of merely disputing certain 
points with the philosophers and others 
whom he met at public places, as he had 
done at Athens, Paul, on the very first Sab- 
bath after his arrival, entered into the Jew- 
ish synagogue and preached with great 



PAUL'S LABORS. 145 

boldness, both to the Jews and their Greek 
proselytes. He continued in this course, 
preaching on the Sabbath, and laboring on 
week days, till the arrival of Silas and 
Timothy. 

It is said by some of our commentators 
on the Scriptures, that between the time 
of Paul's departure from Berea, and the 
arrival of Silas and Timothy at Corinth, — 
Silas had made a journey back to Thessa- 
lonica to comfort the new converts under 
the tribulation which they endured after 
the sudden flight of the missionaries. But 
I am ignorant of the proof by which such 
assertions are supported. Still the story 
may be correct ; and if so, it may account 
for their strange delay about coming to 
meet Paul, as he had requested, at Athens. 
Be this as it may, their arrival at Corinth 
greatly encouraged Paul, and he proceed- 
ed in his labors with redoubled energy. 

For several Sabbaths during their first 
abode at Corinth, Paul's efforts were chief- 
ly confined to the Jews and their Grecian 
proselytes. But although he labored most 

20 



146 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 



faithfully with them, and endeavored by 
everv possible means to convince them that 
Jesus Christ was the Savior for whom they 
had been so long looking; and to persuade 
them to receive him as such, and embrace 
the gospel, yet he met with little success. 
Nay-3 more, they not only disbelieved, but 
they opposed ; and some went so far as to 
insult and revile him. They laughed him 
to scorn, cavilled at his doctrines, and blas- 
phemed the name and derided the divinity 
of his crucified Lord and master. 

Worn out. at last, with their obstinacy 
and hardness of heart, and grieved at the 
insults which were thus heaped both upon 
him and the cause he had espoused, he 
shook his raiment against them, in the east- 
ern manner, and declaring most, solemnly 
that if they perished in their sins, their guilt 
must rest, not on him, but on their own 
heads, he left them, and from that day, as 
long as he remained at Corinth, devoted 
himself chiefly, if not wholly, to the 
Gentiles. 

But as he could no longer preach in the 



PAUL'S PREACHING. 147 

synagogue, it was necessary to find a new 
place for holding meetings. Close by the 
synagogue, lived a man by the name of 
Justus, who had been, some time before, 
converted to Christianity. This man was 
kind enough to fit up a room in his own 
dwelling house ; and here for a long time — 
perhaps as long as the missionaries re- 
mained there, they held their meetings. 

It is conjectured, by many, that Paul 
was the more ready to accept of Justus' 
offer from the very fact that he lived so 
near the synagogue; for it would have 
been cruel, say they, had he gone entirely 
out of the way of the new converts from 
the Jews, which he had already made, 

hough their number was but small. Be 
ihis as it may, it is quite evident that though 
le forsook the Jews, they did not all for- 
sake him. Crispus the chief ruler of the 
synagogue, with his whole household, 
became his followers. But his success ap- 
pears to have been greater among the 
Greeks, after all, than among the Jews, as 

ve shall see in the sequel. 



148 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

About this time — for reasons, which we 
do not now understand, the great apostle's 
usual courage and perseverance anoear to 

O i LI 

have partially failed him. We may judge 
that this was so, from what follows. And 
I think that nothing but the interposition 
of Divine Providence prevented his flying 
from the citv. 

J 

But Providence saw fit to interpose, anc 
prevent such a measure. One coramoi 
method in which God made known his wi I 
to men in those davs was bv visions. Paul 
had one of these. The Lord spake to him 
in a vision, and said ; " Be not afraid, but 
speak and hold not thy peace, for I am with 
thee; for 1 have much people in this city." 
By the last expression, it is supposed the 
Lord intended that there were many in th3 
city who would ultimately, by means cf 
Paul's preaching, become his people. 

This vision encouraged Paul, greatl/. 
He resumed his labors with new energy; 
and in the end resided in Corinth eighteen 
months ; some think much longer. Ey af- 
firming that he continued at Corinth sq 






SILAS AND TIMOTHY. 



149 



long, is meant that he made it his [.home 
there. Probably he went out, occasional- 
ly, iuto the surrounding country, and 
especially to Athens, and other neighbor- 
ing cities and villages. 

But where were Silas and Timothy ? 
Not a word is said about either of them 
after their arrival at Corinth, during Paul's 
residence there ; and even for some time 
after he returned to Jerusalem, and Antioch. 
Is there then no way of ascertaining where 
they were, and what they were doing, all 
this while'? Surely, you will say, they 
were not idle. 

We should remember, in the first place, 
that all the accounts in the "Acts" are nec- 
essarily very brief. And, in the second 
place, they are particularly short in regard 
to those who were not the principal actors 
in the scenes which they describe. Thus 
nothing was, for a long time, said about 
Barnabas in some stages of the tour which 
Paul and he made to Asia Minor, a few 
years before. So, during the present jour- 

20* 



|50 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

ney, there are sometimes long intervals, 
during which nothing was said of Timothy 
and of the others. And all this, too, when 
we well know the individuals were not 
absent. In like manner, are we not author- 
ized to conclude that Silas and Timothy 
made Corinth their head quarters, as long 
as Paul remained there °l 

We shall be more inclined to this opin- 
ion from examining Paul's two letters to 
the Thessalonians, which were evidently 
written after his arrival at Corinth. It is 
hardly probable that he wrote them, until 
he had been some time there ; but it is cer- 
tain that when he wrote the first, Silas and 
Timothy were both with him. Besides, we 
find that Timothy had been sent to Thes- 
salonica on a mission, and had returned be- 
fore Paul wrote the first time. Hence it 
seems to me there can be no doubt, that 
the conclusion that they remained there as 
long as Paul did, was correct. It is, howev- 
er, highly probable that they made excur- 
sions into the surrounding cities and villages. 






LETTER TO THE THESSALON1ANS 151 

The cause of Paul's writing to the Thes- 
salonians appears to have been the follow- 
ing. Timothy's return brought him the 
painful tidings that a dreadful persecution 
raged there ; the new converts stood firm 
in their christian belief, resisting the united 
attacks of both Jews and idolaters. Find- 
ing it difficult to leave Corinth, yet anxious 
to comfort them and encourage them to 
hold out to the last, the good apostle con- 
cluded to write to them. 

The main design of his first letter ap- 
pears to have been to confirm and strength- 
en the belief of his followers in the Chris- 
tian religion; to encourage them to bear 
their afflictions and persecutions like good 
soldiers of the cross of Christ, and to per- 
severe in their resolutions unshaken even 
by the fear of death itself; and lastly, in 
the most affectionate and fatherly manner, 
to give them practical and familiar instruc- 
tion in some of the ordinary duties of the 
Christian life. 

But as the best intentions are liable to 

22 



152 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

be misunderstood, and the clearest written 
directions, though given under the general 
direction of the Holy Spirit, liable to be 
misconstrued, so it happened in regard to 
this first letter of PauPs. When it was 
read the first time in the church at Thessa- 
lonica, some of those to whom it was 
addressed, entirely misunderstood certain 
parts of it, supposing the Apostle meant to 
inculcate the idea that the day of judgment 
was near; and reporter! it abroad as com- 
ing from his mouth. This error was eagerly 
seized and circulated by the enemies of the 
infant church, which, for a time, produced 
great mischief among its members. Some 
even neglected all business, supposing that 
the things of eternity were so near, as to 
render every thing which concerned time 
trifling and worthless. 

As soon as Paul heard of this state of 
things at Thessalonica, he immediately 
wrote his second letter, in which, besides 
encouraging them to continue steadfast in 
the faith they had professed, he assured 



PERSECUTION AT CORINTH. 153 

them that the day of judgment was not very 
near; and that it should not come till cer- 
tain events had happened, which he partic- 
ularly pointed out to them. 

When quiet was restored at Thessalonica 
by these letters*, Paul resumed his mission- 
ary labors in Corinth, and the adjacent re- 
gion, with new energy. But it seeded to 
be his lot, wherever he went, sooner or 
later, to awaken opposition, if not violent 
persecution. And what had been his for- 
tune elsewhere, finally befel him at Corinth. 

The prejudices of the Jews became 
aroused, till at last their feelings began to 
show themselves in open enmity. They 
"made insurrection" against him, as the 
scripture expresses it, and brought him 
before Gallio, the deputy of Achaia. 

The only charge against him was that 
he persuaded, or tried to persuade, people 
to worship God contrary to the law. But 
Gallio w r as too wise a man to pay much at- 
tention to an accusation of so trifling a 
character ; and which, if true, ought not 



154 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION 



to come before him, but should be tried in 
the Jewish synagogue. He did not even 
require Paul to make a defence, but at 
once told the Jews that if the charge had 
been for any crime that came within his 
jurisdiction, they should have been heard. 
But as the matter stood, as the dispute was 
merely a question of words and names, he 
would have nothing to do with it. Ac- 
cordingly he sent them awav from hisiudg- 
men seat, to get along with the affair as 
they could. 

It was exceedingly fortunate for Paul 
that he fell into the hands of a judge so 
wise and good as Gallio. Had he been 
arraigned before some of the judges of 
those days, he might not have escaped so 
easily or so honorably. 

It is said, by some, to have been custo- 
mary in Corinth, at that time, to beat those 
who brought groundless accusations against 
others. Perhaps this may help to explain 
the meaning of the scripture which savs, 
that after Gallio had sent away Paul and 






PAUL LEAVES CORINTH. 155 

his accusers, the Greeks took Sosthenes, 
and " beat him before the judgment seat." 
This Sosthenes was the ruler of the Jewish 
synagogue, and probably succeeded Cris- 
pus, who lost his office upon joining the 
Christians. 

After this affair happened, Paul remained 
a considerable time longer at Corinth, with- 
out meeting, so far as we can learn from 
the sacred books, with any farther trouble. 
How long he staid we do not exactly know. 
He had already been there eighteen months. 
It may very fairly be supposed that he re- 
mained there several months longer. He 
did not leave Corinth, as it appears to me, 
till he had established a church there, and 
perhaps more than one. This church at 
Corinth, afterward received two letters from 
him, of considerable length. Both of them 
were written, as is stated at the end of 
them, in the New Testament, from Phillippi. 

Not very long after St. Paul left Corinth, 
this church, however flourishing it might 
have been at first, fell into a most deplora- 

24* 



156 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

ble condition. False teachers arose, and 
disorders and schisms sprung up. Some 
of the members of the churches professed 
themselves followers of Paul, some of Apol- 
los, (who had recently been among them 
preaching) and others of Cephas, or Peter. 
Others, refusing to be called by the name 
of any other teacher, called themselves fol- 
lowers of Christ. In his letters, Paul ad- 
verts to this subject, and censures them 
rather severely for it. 

But in spite of this confusion, the church 
was not wholly destroyed. The name, at 
the least, of a church remained. To this 
day, one half of the people of Corinth are 
said to be Christians. They belong to the 
Greek church, and have an archbishop at 
their head. 

I have spoken, elsewhere, of the fortune 
of Paul, in awakening opposition w r herever 
he went, as if it were something peculiar 
to him. But it was not so. There never 
was a time, since Christ began to preach, 
when his gospel, if faithfully proclaimed, 




PERSECUTION. 157 

I did not awaken more or less of opposition. 
Such is its nature and that of the human 
heart, that this result ought always to be 
expected. When a preacher disturbs no- 

i body, there is reason to doubt whether the 
smooth things which he preaches are quite 
the plain, naked, gospel truths which pro- 
cured so many enemies to the Saviour and 
his early followers. 

True, there are a great many w r ays in 
which persecution may be manifested ; and 
in this country, especially, where the Chris- 
tian religion is the most fashionable relig- 
ion, no one can reasonably expect a minis- 
ter will be mobbed. Still, if faithful, he 
will have enemies, either openly or secretly: 
nor can he avoid them. 

Let me not be supposed to justify the 
followers of Christ in courting opposition 
or persecution. On the contrary, they 
should avoid it, if possible, as the Saviour 
and Paul did ; but when it comes — as come 
it most certainly will, in some form or other — 



158 



SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 



let them remember that their great Master 
suffered before them ; and that the way to 
glory is usually through much tribulation 



and suffering. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Voyage to Cesarea. They stop at Ephesus. Account 
of Ephesus. Temple of Diana. Paul preaches at 
Ephesus. What probably became of Timothy. Paul 
re-embarks for Cesarea. Safe arrival. Goes to 
Jerusalem. Attends a Jewish feast there. Proceeds 
to Antioch. Recapitulation. Practical reflections. 

The first missionary tour into Europe was 
now drawing to a close. Paul and his 
companions were on the eve of setting out 
for Syria. The vessel in which they were 
to sail was bound for Cesarea, the nearest 
port to Jerusalem ; for instead of going 
directly back to Antioch, the place from 
whence they set out, they proposed to go 
first to Jerusalem to attend a Jewish festi- 
val, about to be celebrated there. 



160 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

As the vessel in which they sailed was to 
go by way of Ephesus, then a large city, 
and the capital of Asia Minor, and as Aqui- 
la and his wife Priscilla wished to go there 
to reside a while, they proposed to accom- 
pany the missionaries thus far on their 
voyage. 

In order to embark, they went to the 
port of Cenchrea. Here Paul had his head 
shorn, as we a»*e told, because " he had a 
vow. 5 ' What sort of a vow it was, or for 
what purpose it was made, does not so 
plainly appear. Many think it was the 
vow of a Nazarite ; and perhaps this is the 
more probable supposition. 

This vow of a Nazarite was a ceremony 
so peculiar, that it may not be out of place 
to give a short account of it. 

A Nazarite was a man or woman who 
engaged for a certain specified time, to ab- 
stain from wine and all intoxicating liquors ; 
to let the hair grow ; and not to enter any 
house were there was a dead body, or be 
present at any funeral. The vow general- 



PAUL'S VOVf. 161 

fly lasted eight days ; sometimes a month ; 
and sometimes, as in the case of Samson 
.and John the Baptist, during life. 
i When the time of Nazariteship was expired, 
.the priest brought the person to the door of 
t the temple, and there went through with 
certain ceremonies of offering sacrifices, 
<&c. But those who made a vow, out of 
| Palestine, as was the case with Paul, (if his 
i was indeed a vow of Nazariteship at all) 
and could not come to the temple when 
, their vow was expired, contented them- 
selves with observing the abstinence re- 
quired by the law, and cutting off their 
hair in the place where they were. The 
other ceremonies Avere deferred to a con- 
venient opportunity. Hence Paul, who 
happened to be at Cenchrea, when his vow 
l terminated, had his head shaved, but defer- 
red the other ceremonies of his vow, till he 
arrived at Jerusalem. 

The missionaries and their companions, 

iPriscilla and Aquila, now embarked at 

Cenchrea, and after performing a voyage 

24 



162 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

of nearly two hundred and fifty miles, ar- 
rived safely at Ephesus. Ephesus was 
once the most celebrated city in all Asia 
Minor, both for its population and wealth. 
Its situation on a side hill, gently slop- 
ing to the west and on the banks of a 
small stream, was beautiful. It was the 
greatest place of trade in all that region, 
and had a spacious and convenient harbor. 
Though repeatedly destroyed in w 7 ar, and 
by earthquakes, it was as often re-buiit. 

Between the city and its harbor stood the 
famous temple of Diana, the construction 
of which is said to have employed laborers 
from all parts of Asia Minor for more than 
two hundred years.'"" It was four hundred 
and twenty-five feet long, and two hundred 
broad; and had one hundred and twenty 
seven pillars, each sixty feet high. Each 
piilar, with its base, was calculated to con- 
tain one hundred and fifty tons of marble. 

* Pliny the historian says four hundred years; but 
this is doubtful. All historians agree, however, in one 
point; which is, that the whole of Asia Minor con- 
tributed to the expenses of building it. 



THE TEMPLE OF DIANA. 163 

These pillars were the works of as many 
different kings, and twenty-seven of them 
were curiously and beautifully wrought. — 
The doors and pannelling of the temple 
were made of cypress wood, polished and 
shining : and the stair case of vine wood. 
It was extremely rich in its internal deco- 
rations, and contained many statues and 
pictures : some of which were among the 
most perfect productions of antiquity. 

The temple was served by priests and 
virgins, who pretended to uncommon purity 
and sanctity of character. They were 
selected from the higher classes of citizens, 
and enjoyed a large revenue, with many 
privileges, besides being enriched by pres- 
ents from the crowd of worshippers who 
came there to the yearly festivals. 

The temple of Diana was considered as 
a kind of asylum, to which if a criminal 
fled he was safe. Its limits as such, at first 
extended to a furlong, but they were after- 
wards extended so far that they embraced 
almost the whole city. But the Roman 

23 



164 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

emperor Tiberias pat a stop to all this, by 
passing a decree that no person guilty of 
any wicked or dishonest action should 
escape justice by fleeing to the temple for 
refuge, even if he laid hold of the very altar 
itself. 

Besides the temple of Diana, there was 
also at Ephesus, a statue of the goddess 
Diana. It was made of wood, and was 
richly dressed. Each hand was supported 
by a bar of precious metal, — probably gold. 
A veil hanoino; from the ceiling of the tern- 
pie concealed the idol, except during their 
religious service or worship. 

What historians state about that temple 
of Diana is in some respects almost incred- 
ible — namely— that notwithstanding its im- 
mense expense, it had been destroyed at 
least seven or eight times before the period 
of Paul's visaing the city; but had been as 
often re-built ; and the last time with more 
splendor than ever. Such enormous ex- 
pense to keep up a temple for idol worship, 
surprizes us, and perhaps ought to shame 



EPHESUS. 1G5 

some of us who are scarcely willing to con- 
tribute the smallest sums for the erection 
of plain Christian churches. 

All that now remains of the ancient 
Ephesus is a miserable village of mud cot- 
tages, with about a dozen small square brick 
buildings, the ruins of orchards and baths, 
inhabited by forty or fifty families of Turk- 
ish herdsmen, who live in extreme wretch- 
edness. Its very streets are obscured and 
overgrown. A traveller remarks concern- 
ing it : " A herd of goats was driven to it 
for shelter from the rays of the sun at noon, 
and a noisy flight of crows from the quar- 
ries screamed to insult its silence. We 
heard the partridge in the area of the thea- 
tre of the stadium." 

When Paul and his companions arrived 
at Ephesus the city was probably at the 
height of its glory, and yet given up to the 
grossest vices and the most luxurious effem- 
inacy. The magnificence of the temple 
and its goddess leave_ not a doubt on our 
minds, that the inhabitants were not only 



166 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

abandoned to foul vices, but to the most 
degraded superstition, and the rankest 
idolatry. 

Wretched and degraded as the inhabi- 
tants of Ephesus were, Paul did not hesitate 
to make what effort he could in their be- 
half while he remained among them. — 
There were a few Jews there ; and at the 
least one synagogue. He entered the syn- 
agogue on the Sabbath, and reasoned with 
the Jews in his usual manner; but with 
what success we are not fully informed. — 
We only know that they urged him to stay 
longer, which is one of the surest indica- 
tions that their minds were opened, and 
their hearts much affected. , 

But the stay of the Apostle at Ephesus 
was short. Some think that Timothy staid 
longer; and a few suppose that either at 
this time, or at a subsequent period, he was 
made a bishop or overseer of the church 
there. But it is hardly to be credited that 
there was any church there when Paul left 
the place, at the time we are speaking of. 



PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 167 

The more probable conjecture is that Tim- 
othy left the company here, to pursue his 
journey by the straitest and nearest road 
to Lystra, his native home, from which he 
had now been a long time absent. As for 
Silas, I think it most probable that he ac- 
companied Paul to Jerusalem and perhaps 
farther. 

We have seen that though the Jews at 
Ephesus pressed Paul to stay longer among 
them, he refused. The time of the feast at 
Jerusalem was now at hand, and he seemed 
determined to be present at its celebration. 
So after giving them much encouragement 
of returning thither before long, be bade 
the Ephesians an affectionate farewell, and 
re-embarked for Cesarea. 

The voyage to Cesarea was prosperous. 
As soon as he had landed, Paul hastened to 
Jerusalem where he met and saluted the 
churches; and where it is most probable 
he kept the passover, and if his vow was 
that of a Nazarite, offered his sacrifices, 
and performed every necessary ceremony. 

23* 



168 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

But as there were already many faithful 
ministers at Jerusalem, it is not likely he 
staid to preach there, even once. On the 
contrary, as the scriptures assure us, he im- 
mediately went down to Antioch. where in 
the midst of his friends and acquaintance 
and brethren of the church, he appears to 
have enjoyed a short respite from his more 
arduous labors. Let me not be understood 
as supposing he was idle, for nobody will 
be likely to believe that Paul was ever en- 
tirely inactive. But my meaning is simply 
that 1 suppose that instead of being con- 
stantly exposed to trials and persecutions 
from stranger foes, he now spent his strength, 
for a time, among a people who knew him, 
and could sympathise with and encourage 
him. And this, to a care worn and aged 
minister, is the sweetest earthly rest he can 
take. 

One thing which -wears out ministers. — 
even in modern days — as much perhaps as 
any thing else, is the obvious want of sym- 
pathy with them which they almost every 



PAUL LEAVES CORINTH 169 

where discover. Not a few professing 
Christians meet their ministers with great 
politeness and much apparent cordiality, 
but when they come to propose their co- 
operation in some course of benevolent 
action which shall involve a little self-de- 
nial, they stand at a distance, and evince 
the most utter destitution of any real heart- 
felt sympathy with them. Paul, in his day, 
found few such half-way Christians. Those 
who joined the standard of the cross of 
Christ, were generally whole-hearted in the 
cause ; and those who were opposed to 
him w T ere openly so. 

Thus ended a long and perilous journey; 
long, at least, in that age of the world. — 
Nor would it be a very short one in any 
age — performed, afc much of it was, on foot. 
It would be difficult to make an estimate 
of the whole distance travelled over during 
the journey, because it is impossible to 
know what places were visited which are 
not mentioned. Travellers tell us, for ex- 
ample, about the ruins of fifteen villages 

25 



170 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

almost within sight of Corinth. Did the 
rnjssionaries visit these, and many more 
places in Achaia, during their long resi- 
dence there of almost or quite two years °l 
And how many times did they go to, and 
return from Athens "? And on how many 
missions were Silas and Timothy sent, dur- 
ing the same period 9 

Paul's whole journey could not, as it ap- 
pears to me, have been less than from three 
thousand five hundred to four thousand 
miles, both in going and returning. The 
whole time of absence must have been, I 
suppose, a little over two years; possibly 
two years and a half. 

During this tour Paul had been some- 
times alone, and sometimes in company 
with others. This company varied at dif- 
ferent times, from one to three persons. 
Among them, they visited at least fifteen 
or twenty cities of considerable rank ; and 
how many smaller ones, in the regions of 
Cilicia, Galatia, Phrygia, Mysia, and Achaia, 
we know not. They were persecuted in 




PAUL RIDICULED. m 



several places ; Paul was brought before 
many magistrates and courts, and once, with 
Silas, whipped and imprisoned. We do 
not find that either he or any of the com- 
pany were assaulted with stones, as they 
were during the former excursion, but they 
suffered almost every other form of perse- 
cution, and met with almost every other 
indignity. 

To what privations on account of food, 
clothing, and the other necessaries of life, 
they were subjected, in the progress of 
their journsy — one of almost unending 
vicissitudes — we are only able to conjec- 
ture from a few facts. We find Paul, in 
.more than one instance, laboring with his 
hands, and after reading his first letter to 
the Thessalonians no one need be at a loss 
for the reason. 

But the physical sufferings of the mission- 
ary, in any country, or in any age, are 
nothing compared with the mental and moral 
ills to which he is subjected. Those who 
are wholly inexperienced in this matter. 



172 SECOND FOREIGN MISSION. 

and above all those who never felt the 
worth of an immortal mind and soul, are 
very apt to look merely at external condi- 
tion. They seem to make every thing of 
the wants and sufferings, the pleasures and 
the joys, of the animal nature, and but lit- 
tle, in comparison, of those of the higher 
or spiritual being. 

The missionary, indeed, like other men, 
is susceptible to pain and pleasure, even of 
the physical nature. He is not so far spirit- 
ual, even though rapt into the third heaven 
occasionally, like Paul, but that he feels — 
and most seriously too, the pangs produced 
by hunger and thirst, and great cold and 
heat; and knows when he is stripped of his 
clothing, whipped with rods, and put in 
close confinement or stoned. It is not im- 
probable that the susceptibility of the 
physical frame of the intelligent and spirit- 
ual, is exalted in the same proportion as 
their moral susceptibility is increased. But 
the spiritual man knows that these " light 
afflictions, which are but for a moment 



PERSECUTION. 173 

work out for us a far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory," if we receive and 
endure in a becoming manner, and with a 
proper spirit. 

It is noble to see a human being, con- 
scious of innocence and integrity and purity 
of purpose, enduring trials and bearing up 
up under unmerited punishment, — bonds, 
stripes, imprisonment, and stoning, — with- 
out uttering one improper expression, or 
breathing forth one unchristian murmur. 
But is it not more noble still, to witness 
the operations of a never dying mind — how 
it arms the man against foes within as well 
as foes without — and enables the possessor 
to set a proper value on life, and a just 
estimate on death and eternity ? Is it not 
more than noble- — is it not glorious — to 
witness the struggles of a spirit tutored by 
the Divine mind rising superior to every 
thing earthly, and in the moment of its 
departure, perhaps amid faggots and flames, 
exclaiming, Oh death ! where is thy sting? 
Oh grave ! where is thy victory. 



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